Edo Period Corner Part II

[Bugyotsuji]

OK, and the Fujiwara for good measure! :lol:

[Bugyotsuji]

Brought this up in conversation with my Nihon to teacher today and he reckons that the simple answer is the earlier of the two smiths, simply because spear production would have dropped off exponentially by the end of the 17th century. Into the beginning of Edo there were battles happening here and there, and yari still had a diminishing role to play, before the whole country really settled down into a golden era of peace and stability. Makes sense on balance, I guess.

[Bugyotsuji]

Does anyone know what this is? From about 1700, apparently, around about the time of the 赤穂浪士 Ako Roshi incident?

From p.14 of this thread.

 

Just been told it is part of a matsuri harness for an ox...

[Bugyotsuji]

This may be part of a Bachi plectrum for some musical instrument. (?)

 

My wife wants it off me so I have been forced to take some quick shots before it gets confiscated and squirrelled away.

 

Modern Shamisen Bachi tend to be more splayed and pointed. There are some Bachi for the Biwa lutes in the Shoso-In in Nara which bear some resemblance towards the head. Does anyone have any ideas, for better or for worse?

 

Ivory. 7cm long, by 5cm at the widest point.

[Bugyotsuji]

Chatting with a J antiques dealer yesterday and he came up with roughly the same scenario, without any prompts.

 

"An old plectrum of John Lennon's" he said, "with the original designs on it. Old. Worn down, possibly broken. Holes later drilled for extension of life as a Netsuke."

 

Three holes in a Netsuke, rather rare I thought to myself, ( like a three-eyed toad, a world first?) so besides here I also showed it over on the International Netsuke Society's forum, to deafening silence. :|

[Bugyotsuji]

On the other hand, during my rounds of the waterholes today a friend silently handed me this. Bone, some age to it.

 

Length 19 cm. Width 5 cm.

[Viper6924]

Piers, that bucking horse reminds me of the horse insignia on the banners of the Soma-clan in Fukushima-han. And the crossed feathers is def the Asano clan crest. But I´m sure this plectrum has nothing to do with the samurai... :lol:

 

Buuuut, talking about th samurai Here´s a flag that some how ended up in my hands. A bit ragged but at least it doesn´t stink the house up which my girlfriend appreciate. And it has a rather nice wooden "clip" holding it. It´s about 80x35 cm. To big for a sode-jirushi, I guess. What would the correct Japanese terminology for this be?

 

Jan

[Bugyotsuji]

John Stuart on this site has a friend who illustrates these beautifully for each of the various Daimyo, name slipping here, Evalerio? I have to say though that it looks like an Ikeda banner, but I can't be sure as there were so many variations. Have a look on this site: http://www.samurai-archives.com/index.html

 

As to the terminology, Jan, try a Taremaku 垂れ幕 (type of Umajirushi 馬標　or 馬印)

[Viper6924]

Thanks for that useful info, Piers! Finding a matching banner is almost like finding a specific mon... a hard job

Would be nice if it could be tied to the Ikeda-clan.

 

Jan

[Viper6924]

Here´s a picture of a hata-jirushi I found in a book. Have a similar look to it, but I guess from looking at other illustrations that this form of banner was a bit longer than the one hanging on my wall.

A pretty interesting field of study, these Japanese flags/banners.

 

Jan

[Bugyotsuji]

Nice! How's this then? (From another book!)

[Viper6924]

Spot on, Piers :D

 

Jan

[Bugyotsuji]

(As you all knew, that was the nobori or hata-jirushi of the Kyushu Lord Matsu-ura, pronounced in one word with no hiccup "Matsura" apparently. "No better than a gangster", according to a Japanese friend!)

 

Today I found a bit of a treasure, well, for me anyway. It caught my eye at once, sitting on the back edge of a dealer's pitch. Black, with a sloping roof and square holes for the porter's pole, it was a carrying chest for the Sankin-kotai. Well, it was good-looking enough on its own, but the story that came with it tipped my hand.

 

The dealer got it from the descendants of a woman who worked in the kitchens of the Ishii family Honjin in Yakage.

http://www.town.yakage.lg.jp/sight/ishii.html

The Daimyo processions used to pass ceremoniously through Yakage on their way to and from Edo and stop at this place overnight. If ever you are down in this part of the world, catch the Yakage Daimyo Gyoretsu procession festival and have a look inside the Honjin Inn. Like a step back in time, with the original records of Daimyo trains passing through hanging on the walls, and massive equipment to cook and wash for large numbers of people, etc., it will not disappoint you. Inside it is huge, and the cool and tranquil atmosphere is as if the WWII never happened and you are transported back to Edo.

 

Anyway there came a time when the local staff were dismissed and many took whatever they could carry. They left anything too large, or anything bearing Kamon, it is said. This chest had been left behind by the Shimazu Daimyo train, the woman who brought it home used to tell her family. The dealer told me that most of the smaller decorative stuff in the Honjin as you see it today was actually brought in later from elsewhere.

[Bugyotsuji]

Brian's voice in my brain saying "pics please!".

 

So it's a bit battered... but I gave it a quick wipe. :|

 

Originally it would have had a lacquered leather (?) cover to protect it from the rain. I asked about carrying poles but he shrugged and laughed as if to say "rare as hen's teeth".

[Brian]

The voice in your head was right :lol:

That is a lovely piece. Do you think stuff like that fetches less in Japan than the West because of lack of space? I bet it would be quite a high value item outside of Japan. Nice one!

 

Brian

[Bugyotsuji]

That is a very good question with a complex answer, Brian, and I'd be happy to throw this open to the house, although you have kind of answered it within your question.

 

In my opinion, or perhaps experience here as a casual observer, I feel the better stuff goes to the top and probably fetches top dollar abroad. It will either go straight abroad, or will sit in top antiques shops in Tokyo/Kyoto and wait for the foreign buyer to come in and pay OTT prices, by Japanese standards.

 

All the rest is totally undervalued. Pieces like this to me are historically and artistically interesting, but it is my hunch that very, very few Japanese people would be willing to buy such a thing and keep it in their house. My wife despairs over the boxes and chests I have brought home. Sometimes I feel I am rescuing history, ie giving an object a new lease of life, albeit short, before it goes downhill and possibly the dump. She certainly would not want me to take anything back to the West if and when we leave. It costs money to ship abroad. Some will get damaged en route. Some countries like Australia do not allow imports of wooden objects. There are so many considerations and difficulties, but where there is a will there must be a way.

 

A Japanese collector of Menpo that I know will expect a dealer to give him a super cheap rate of perhaps 500,000 JPY, but if that dealer knows a foreign collector/dealer is coming next week, (many visitors will announce their appearance in advance to make sure they do not arrive to a shuttered shop for example) the dealer will refuse to sell to the Japanese collector; instead he will apologize and say he is expecting someone to come and buy it for 1 mill~1,500,000 next week.

 

Still, we are talking about boxes/chests. I have two Tebako Momoyama ladies' vanity cases which cost me peanuts. I saw a particularly good one in an antique shop in Kyoto last month for 380,000 JPY!... but even that was probably too cheap for what you get. I saw another one displayed respectfully in the Noh artifacts exhibition at Shokoku-Ji behind Doshisha University. As the armourer Morisaki San lamented, there will always be a few rich people around, but until the general populace comes to understand and better appreciate these things from the past... Abenomics cannot be considered to have begun to work.

[IanB]

Brian, Piers, Sadly I feel you are right, most Japanese, as well as most Europeans, have no regard for their heritage. My rummaging in Japanese flea-markets (I was going to use the older term fossicking and realised most people wouldn't understand) turned up many pieces that I regard as absolute treasures, but caused their vendors to look at me as if I was totally out of my mind wanting such rubbish. On one occasion I found a small fabric tube, about 6" long lined with silk and shaped to fit on a saya around and below the kurigata. I bet nearly every samurai had one, but how many do you see? It was to stop the saya of the two swords rubbing together and damaging the lacquer where they cross under the obi. Similarly I once found a simple koshiate that fitted around a katana saya under the obi. It is trivial, just a few bits of leather, but again I would imagine most samurai on the daimyo gyoretsu wore one to stop their left hip bone getting pounded to shreds marching day after day for sometimes months on end whilst wearing a katana. These are the kind of trivia that would have been commonplace, but were discarded for exactly that reason when the wearing of swords was abolished. This type of item, and so much else, were not the kind of items the tourists to Japan in the 19th century thought to acquire with the swords, armour and other weapons they were buying as souvenirs. As a result they almost never feature in the study of swords and other military equipment since I suspect few today know they ever existed.

Ian Bottomley

[Bugyotsuji]

This tube you describe is new to me and I would love to see a shot of it if you have one, Ian.

 

As to the Koshiate, some years ago our teppotai leader pulled one out and showed us how they work. It was slung from a sort of circular cross-section, double thonged leather belt. He has since bought several of different shapes and sizes at the dealer auctions, mended or adapted them, even making new ones, and handed them out to the members. I have worn mine regularly ever since.

[IanB]

Piers, Here is the tube item whose name I have never known. I also included the koshiate since they were both handy.

Ian

[Bugyotsuji]

Ah, excellent, Ian. I'll see if I can get a name for you if someone else does not beat me to it!

[Viper6924]

Had friend and his wife over for dinner. He brought with him a nasty looking tool. The pole it self been cut down to about 1,5 meter with a iron ishizuki at the end.

 

I guess it´s some kind of Sasumata. But the spike in the middle seems to have a more deadly purpose than the ordinary sasumatas I´ve seen.

 

I def wouldn´t like to be "arrested" with this one

 

The small spikes on the pole is sharp as hell. Perhaps is for getting riders of their horses? That would explain the spike.

 

Jan

[estcrh]

Jan, there is the possibility that your friends sasumata (spear fork) is a replica and not an exact one. Someone making a replica without knowledge of its exact use could make the mistake of exaggerating the central spike. The sasumata was a restraining tool actually and not a weapon, the curved part would be used to push the intended target up against a solid object like a wall, while the central spike kept the target from pushing forward, the spikes on the pole were to keep the criminal being restrained from grabbing the pole. With the help of a few assistants using sasumata or any of the other torimono sandōgu (three tools of arresting) such as the sodegarami (sleeve entangler), and tsukubo (push pole) an armed samurai could be captured with out being killed.

 

Here is one of mine to compare and a print showing these tools in use.

 

[Viper6924]

Sounds like a very plausible theory, Eric! Cos with that long

spike, the only thing you would "hold" on to was a fresh corps

 

Jan

[Bugyotsuji]

Yes, it does have a 'young' feel to the iron and shape.

 

Here are some examples of very modern Sasumata used in schools and banks around Japan for catching undesirable types.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%B5%E3%82 ... m_sbs_sg_5

 

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%A2%E3%83 ... m_sbs_sg_2

 

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%A0%AA%E5%BC ... _sbs_sg_11

 

Many more on Amazon.

[Bugyotsuji]

Bought this in London recently. Properly framed conjoining woodblock ukiyo-e prints, either a diptych or 2 parts of a triptych (?) but apart from the single right screen of which I found one example, I cannot find another example of this work online. Created and printed in the mid 1800s, it depicts a scene from the mid 1500s.

 

The important figure is on the horse with a yari in his right hand. A famous battle. Does anyone recognize a) The battle scene and figure, b) the artist and/or c) why I wanted this print? :|

 

Close-ups also available upon request.

[watsonmil]

Dear Piers,

In answer to c), ... although not the best of photo resolution, ... I think I see a Teppo ( matchlock gun ) laying on the ground in the bottom left corner of the first print. The answers to a) and b) will have to wait until I get out a few books.

... Ron Watson

[Bugyotsuji]

Ron, you are on the right track. Apologies for the poor quality shot. Reflections on the glass make it worse.

 

If you need any hints or closer shots, just say.

 

Just hitting the sack, but I will check this thread in the morning.

[John A Stuart]

Maybe Matsudaira Motoyasu at the battle of Batogahara (Azukizaka) where Motoyasu (Tokugawa Ieyasu) rode at the head of his forces and was shot a few times in his armour, but, not wounded. I base this all on the Matsudaira banner laying on the ground. John

[Bugyotsuji]

John, I can say no because I have had the benefit of reading some of the writing. When I bought the thing, I knew nothing about it. Thank you for having an honest go at it despite the fog of war!

[Baka Gaijin]

Good evening Piers,

 

The triptych is:

 

Yamamoto Kansuke Haruyuki Nyûdô Dôkisai uchijini no zu

 

Publisher: Kawaguchi-ya Uhei

 

Date: 1845

 

The triptych was designed to make a six sheet composition when put next to:

 

Kawanakajima Shingen Kenshin hatamoto ô-kassen no zu

 

(Same date same publisher).

 

B.W. Robinson catalogued them as T 161 & T 162 in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints (1982)

 

Cheers