Kanazawa Noh Museum

This guide to the Kanazawa Noh Museum centers on Sano Kichinosuke, a shoe merchant, and asks how his footwear profits ended up preserving centuries-old Noh masks and costumes. It traces the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which abolished the samurai class and with it the Maeda lords' patronage of Kaga Hosho, the local Noh style shared with ordinary townspeople. One of the oldest masks on display, carved in the 1600s, still carries its own designation as a Kanazawa cultural property.