Bizen swords @ Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya

[Bugyotsuji]

6 June till 21 July, with the focus on Ichimonji-Ha and Osafune-Ha school blades.

http://www.tokugawa-art-museum.jp/

[kunitaro]

Piers san,

Thank you for info, i saw the list of exhibits.

There is really WOW !! collection !!

what attracted me is No.16 An Iron Tsuba which is owned by Toyotomi Hideyori, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tokugawa Yoshinao. Meibutsu.

What kind of tsuba is that !?!?!

Are you going ?

[Bugyotsuji]

Kunitaro San, yes, I think maybe next week some time. A friend is going and I hope to get a lift in his car. That tsuba certainly has a lot of history attached to it!

[Curran]

Interesting.

Not the 'Invincibility' tsuba?:

http://markussesko.wordpress.com/2013/05/

[Bugyotsuji]

Curran, a plain iron tsuba, named 'Akebono', it is described as 15th c, ie 1400s.

無地鉄鐔 号 あけぼの(12 刀 南泉一文字 附属)

伝豊臣秀頼･伝徳川家康･徳川義直所用 名物 室町 15

[Curran]

Huh.... I'd really like to see that, and get some red miso while at it.

I wasn't intending to return to Nagoya until next year (it has only been 24 years. Figured I'd make it a solid quarter century), so would like any images if anyone gets the chance.

[k morita]

Hi Curran and all, :D

This is the tsuba Meibutsu "Akebono".

Tsuba photo from [Owari Tokugawake no Meiho,(Treasures of the Owari Tokugawa Family, Including Works "Returning Home" )] pub 2010.

[Brian]

And that explains perfectly why I should stick to swords, and leave the iron tsuba alone.

'Cos if I was at a flea market, and saw that lying on a table for $200...I would probably pass on it

Really wish I knew enough to know top work from common stuff.

Someone teach me here what makes this a priceless tsuba (besides the often spoken about "colour and texture of the steel")

This is a crazy hobby.

 

Brian

[cabowen]

Sometimes who owned it is as important (or more so) that what it is....

[Curran]

Brian-

It is mostly about who owned it.

But it is pleasing to see a simple tsuba with such providence.

 

Unless the tsuba is extremely thin, I think many of us would pass it by on the tables as an early edo piece

and not quite recognize its age. Only the altered nakago ana gives any hint to me as something special to someone.

[k morita]

Hi,

According to the pictorial records,[Owari Tokugawake no Meiho], this tsuba(Akebono)is attribute to early ko-Syoami school("ko" means old, old Syoami school), Muromachi period,15th century.

A diameter: 7.6 cm.

[kunitaro]

The list says that The Tsuba has been together with the blade "Nansen Ichimonji" since Toyotomo Hideyori owned.

and there are 3 later Koshirae.

is the Tsuba belong to one of those koshirae ?

However, the tsuba has been staying in very best hands since late muromachi period. so, it is very interesting to study Nakago ana and sekigane, Hitsu ana and Shakudo plug. and shape of seppadai which is connected with shape of Saya.

[Pete Klein]

From, 'Swords and Fittings, Treasures from The Tokugawa Art Museum, vol. 3', listing/plate #227:

無地鉄鐔

muji tetsu tsuba (plain iron tsuba)

徳川家康所用 名物

tokugawaieyasu shoyou meibutsu:

Meibutsu, named, 'Dawn', apparently owned by Tokugawa Ieyasu, which would explain it's importance. As it once belonged to Toyotomi Hideyori then Ieyasu must have 'procurred' it after he was killed at Osaka. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyotomi_Hideyori

If so then this would be a most important relic from a rather diabolical piece of history.

 

I could not find any of the mentioned koshirae in my texts but here is the sword:

[Bugyotsuji]

Having started this thread I suppose I will have to take some responsibility for fleshing it out.

 

5 am start. 800km round trip in a lightly-tuned Mitsubishi and at least 15 pamphlets later I am safely back home. Saw the Yari exhibition at Okazaki Castle, in the Ieyasu and Mikawa Bushi Museum about 50km east of Nagoya. This alone is worth a visit if you have never been. A real eye-opener for me on the beauty and variety of spears. Included in the ticket is entry to the castle keep. Rebuilt, it is a bit of a familiar disappointment with the concrete and metal-railed stairs, but the grounds and moats are superb.

 

Next stop Nagoya and the Tokugawa Art Museum. Set in beautiful gardens it is a bit of an excuse to stretch the legs. I was expecting a few Bizen swords to be thrown together but how wrong I was. They were pulled from everywhere, but it was gratifying to see how they had managed to find something representative of every age and place and personage linked to Bizen and Tokugawa. Some swords gave you three of four chances in a row to see a Mitsutada, a Nagamitsu or a Masatsune from surprisingly different stages in the life of the same smith. Famous names galore. Not a part of my remit here really, but the sword I liked best was a lowly unpapered Hikozaemon Sukesada from 1505. (Please forgive me, these things have to be subjective, so sssshhhh... don't tell anyone.)

 

And now the bad bit. The lighting there was terrible. You could not see into the blades at all. (The Gakugei-in at the Osafune Sword Museum for example do go to infinite trouble to get the lighting just right.) Whoever was responsible at the Tokugawa Museum for placing those precious swords almost haphazardly on those inflexible stands got everything wrong. The katana were bad enough, but the tachi were impossible to appreciate. Sure there were a couple of better-lit cases, but most were under suffused and dimmed light coming through an overhead grille. What a waste! The Akebono tsuba too. Too far from the glass and in shadow, you could see nothing. Greasy spots from foreheads of people tying to get a closer look.

 

To add insult to injury, what happened when we tried to shine a small weak torch/flashlight onto the blades? My sword teacher's batteries were getting low, so I enquired in a whisper to one of the attendants whether the museum shop sold batteries. Her reaction was, "Oh, no, you cannot shine lights on the swords!" Not only no photography, and bad lighting, but no personal lighting allowed? :headbang: The reason? Very Japanese. Apparently the reflected light off a blade had got in another visitor's eyes and there had been a huge row and an official complaint made. In order to mollify the offended visitor, the museum had had to introduce a policy of discouragement of personal lights.

 

Luckily my Sensei produced a card saying who he was, and he lodged an official request to have the lighting improved. Let us hope that the attendant followed up on her word to pass the advice up the line to the absent Gakugei-in.

 

There were other related displays including cases of fabulous hand-painted books on the life and times. (There was an Australian couple there yesterday, the lady in a red dress, the man with a beard. Members here?)

 

Just to see all these swords in one place, with those famous names, was a real privilege and it made the discounted ticket price of 1,200 JPY worth it. Please add your voices (mentioning no names of course) if you have a connection to the Tokugawa Art Museum, in regard to blade angle, positioning and lighting.

[Bugyotsuji]

PS Afterwards we had the engine re-mapped at a tuning shop in Nagoya so the return trip was exhilarating.

 

At just after midnight I got out of the car and saw a fire-blue shooting star dropping towards the orange half-moon hanging low in the sky. Walking back to the house I saw two fireflies in the garden among the shrubbery, reminding me of younger days feeling guilty as I stumbled home drunk to the wife, but sensing that Nature was somehow giving me forgiveness with a glimpse of things rarely seen by more normal folks.

[kunitaro]

Otsukare sama deshita, Piers san,

 

It is privilege living in Japan to have opportunity to see such swords.

Lighting is not always for sword collectors... pity..

I bring small telescope to see them closer through the glass.

 

Akebono tsuba is displyed itself ? so no koshirae with it ??

 

and it is good to hear that you liked Sukesada katana !

Yes, I can understand that Master piece of Sukesada is magnificent.

[Brian]

Nice write-up Piers. Thanks for sharing, and I hope someone takes note of your concerns. Seems a shame to put together such an impressive display, and then ruin it with lighting.

Would love to hear more about those yari. Some interesting pieces?

 

Brian

[Henry Wilson]

Nice write up Piers. Thanks for sharing.

[Bugyotsuji]

My pleasure gentlemen.

 

Kunitaro San. The tsuba was on its own, lying flat in a darkish space between the koshirae on the right (which had a different tsuba in it) and the splendid blade and pieces on the left, as I remember.

 

Brian, no I am too much of a coward to take photos when there are clear signs saying "No Photography". I saw a western youngster obviously snapping away with his mobile smart phone, which was a bit galling. Grrrr.......... There was a Kikuchi yari, two or three fukuro yari, several Oomi, and were some lovely Sasa-ho, several Jumonji, one by the famous Yari smith Masatsune. Perhaps fifty blades altogether, with some amazing Yari-saya.

 

Look at the size of the Yari they had standing in the hall. '3 Gen-Han' Yari, just short of 20 feet?

http://okazakipark.com/museum/iyeyasu/ka100.htm

 

(Four pics. Two clickable links below.)