Really genuine soten tsuba ?

[yogoro]

Dear members ?

 

I just found this tsuba on yahoo auction.

Do you think this tsuba is genuine soten ?

Mei - Mogarashi ?

 

Kind regards

 

Mikolaj

[Bungo]

looks like a Soten tsuba to me( meaning soten school work style. not a modern re-pro )...as to the authenticity of the mei?

That you need to submit to NTHK or NBTHK.

 

milt the ronin

[docliss]

Dear Mikolaj

 

In your e-mail you ask is this tsuba genuine Soten?, and the answer to this question depends upon what you mean by genuine Soten. Work by the two Soten masters, Kitagawa Soten I and II, is extremely rare and this your tsuba is certainly not. The quality of work is sadly lacking and the mei (Soheishi Soten ?saku) is quite unlike any illustrated in the literature.

 

If, however, you mean in the Soten style, yes it is. But the vast majority of such work is by innumerable members of the Soten school, many of whom signed their work with the name Soten, or by members of the Aizu-Shoami school, who made copies of this Hikone-bori type well into the C19. Many of these latter were sold to foreigners at the docks in Yokohama.

 

The tsuba you illustrate is, I am sure, an example of such Aizu-Shoami work, and I would not personally waste my money on sending it to a shinsa.

 

Regards, John L.

[DanielLee]

Here's a nice example

 

http://www.nihonto.us/SOTEN%20SOFT%20METAL%20TSUBA.htm

 

Daniel

[docliss]

I am attaching to this e-mail, images of a rather more typical example, from my own collection, of good Soten work. In shakudo Hikone-bori, it depicts the legend of the Seven Sages in the Bamboo Grove.

 

Compare Inami Tomihike (1969), Doitsu Kara Kaette Kita Tsuba:

The Dr W Fahrenhorst Collection, pp. 64-65.

 

 

Additionally, I have posted images of a shakudo Hikone-bori tsuba by an artist named Masahide (H 04013.0) in order to demonstrate the extremely high quality of workmanship achieved by artists whose work might be dismissed by some collectors as ‘not genuine Soten work’.

 

Regards, John L.

[Bungo]

another example of Hikone bori ( soten school style tsuba )

 

http://www.esnips.com/web/tsuba?docsPage=36#files

uji files

 

milt the ronin

[Ed]

John,

Wow, nice tsuba. I really like the top one depicting the sages in Bamboo.

Thanks for sharing.

Ps: If you want to sell it write me. :D

[yogoro]

Thanks for your interesting explanations.

 

I find also similar motif (the legend of the Seven Sages in the Bamboo Grove.)

on http://aoi-art.com/fittings/tsuba/05166.html

kind regards

Mikolaj

[Pete Klein]

It took me awhile to find this again. This is a Juyo Tosogu Kanenori:

 

http://www.token-net.com/juyotoken/juyo ... uba-1.html

 

(click on the camera UR for close-up pics)

 

This is over the top and at ~$50,000.00 I'll just have to put it on my Christmas wish list.

[Thierry BERNARD]

for 6,000 euros a daisho set (very nice)

 

http://www.espace4.com/antiquites-japon-tsuba-12.html

[yogoro]

Hi !

 

Here is nice collection Soten

 

http://www.truefork.org/Photography/Tsuba_4.php

 

Mikolaj

[docliss]

I agree Mikolaj, a lovely collection of typically Soten tsuba. Interestingly, the seventeenth example down is very similar to the first of the ones that I posted above; the mei also is very similar.

 

I must also comment adversely on their method of display; several of the tsuba appear to be suspended by a thin wire, which is already marking them.

 

Regards, John L.

[nagamaki - Franco]

Hi !

 

Here is nice collection Soten

 

http://www.truefork.org/Photography/Tsuba_4.php

 

Mikolaj

 

thank you for sharing! It would be difficult to pick a favorite among all the different tsuba on this site, but tsuba 92 would be right near the top.