A few Onin tsuba ? - an opinion request

I have a summer vacation and I'm trying to sort out and describe my collection of tsuba.

Today brass inlay tsuba - most like to Onin school.

Please assistance with identifying school and period

Thanks in advance!

...and a few next

better photo octagonal tsuba

Mikolaj,

Very nice collection. Its not easy to pin ages to such tsuba, and there was a quite a diversity of styles and overlap in age between Onin and Heianjo. I would say most of your tsuba date to the Muromachi to Momoyama periods. The colour of the brass is proper - a deeper yellow/orange and attractive. My opinion as follows:

Onin1/2: sukashi motif may be drawer pulls. Standard variety of inlays in brass and yamagane. Style of mimi, shape of hitsuana and workmanship is suggestive of a later age, perhaps late Momoyama to early Edo.

Onin 3/4: motif is a Rinpo. Decent inlay. Great looking, robust mimi and I really like the naive hitsuana. This in my opinion is late Muromachi - Azuchi Momoyama.

Onin 5/6: the earliest one in your collection. Mid to late Muromachi. Classic early Onin motifs and inlays. Obviously lots of black lacquer left on the plate. Ubu with a nice plug, possibly original to the period.

Onin 7/8: Octagonal tsuba. I think this one is a bit later - early - mid Edo.

Onin 9/10: Heianjo style with karakusa and mon motif. Nice with overwhelming majority of the zogan intact. Hitsuana likely original.

Onin 11/12: Tenzogan / senzogan sukashi tsuba. Classic size and style with remnants of black lacquer on the plate. A good amount of zogan is intact, and hitsuana may be original. Mid to late Muromachi.

Its nice to see a good collection of early brass-inlayed Onin and Heianjo pieces. These are actually quite rare in good ubu condition and are under-appreciated by collectors. Thanks for sharing.

Best Regards,

Boris.

Thank's Boris !

...one more thing, interesting shape nakago ana in first tsuba, what do you think about it ?

Those notches appear often when you remove the sekigane, used to set them firmly. It shows it has been remounted. John

5 more tsuba with brass inlay, two are Heianjo type probably early Edo , first signed Izumi No Kami Koike Naomasa , second signed Yamashiro No Kuni Ju Yoshinaga saku , one - very large - Tenpo style

fourth and fifth , which school and age?

Beautiful collection! A little brass polish would really make the

inlays shine :-) (just kidding - don't even think about it)

Rich S

#1: Izumi No Kami Koike Naomasa

H 06677.0, He worked from 1625-1650, so your call of early Edo is correct, and looks like it.

#2: Yamashiro No Kuni Ju Yoshinaga saku. Probably Haynes H 11920.0 worked from 1600-1650. So Momoyama/ Early Edo, also looks like it.

#3 Heianjo,this tsuba demonstrates as we move past the Momoyama period Heianjo artists changed and we see motifs beyond the suemon-zogan of family crests and floral patterns. Iron looks good, so probably Mid Edo.

#4 Heianjo tsuba, demonstrates all the shinchu zogan they were famous for; the ten-zogan in the grapes, and sen-zogan (inlaid brass wires) as the vines and suemon zogan as the leaves. With the iron, design and hitsu-ana, it looks like a later Edo piece.

#5 Heianjo tsuba, like above, but look at the brass and the plate, to me the piece is older, still Edo, but probably 100 years older than #4, assuming the pictures were taken from the same camera and not doctored.

You have a nice collection, of usual pieces, and some nice early ones. Mike

some unusual pieces... not usual.

Mike, thank you for your opinion,the latest photos 4 and 5 tsuba were scanned.

I enclose a photo with the camera.

Mikolaj, those are some quite out of the ordinary and stunning momoyama tsuba. Great condition with lovely patina. Thank you for sharing.

I know, it's a bit off topic, but maybe it's of interest for you:

The first Tsuba you showed has a very common motif - but I heard a few different interpretations of it. I own a Tsuba with the same motif but totally different in school and period. This Tsuba has been in the deConinck Collection and he described it on his file card as "fenetres" (windows), but on the backside of this card he added that it is the motif of "two measuring boxes". Trudel Klefisch described the motif in her auction (where I bought it) as "Ober- bzw. Unterteil einer Lackdose, um 180 Grad gedreht" (upper and lower part of a lacquer box, turned in 180 degree). So please pick the interpretation you like... :D