New Tsuba - Nishigaki

[Antti]

Hello gents,

 

If anybody's wondering, I am still very active in this hobby although I have not been commenting much. I still keep reading all the topics but I've been getting great help from few experienced collectors so I havent found the need to pester you with endless questions.

 

I've acquired a few tsuba since my last topic, and wanted to make a topic about my most recent one. Again I am looking for opinions and impressions. Also the Hozon papers only give it to Nishigaki, so if you have an idea who might be the master behind it, I would be most interested to hear. I've heard that NBTHK is very conservative when giving out Higo-attributions, and only the school is usually mentioned.

 

And here goes:

Size: 7.95 cm x 7.34 cm x 0.51 cm

Weight: 98.7g

Material: Steel with shakudo pillows on hitsu ana

Papers: NBTHK Hozon to Nishigaki

Theme: Tomoe with Kiri-Mon.

The shape is irregular.

I've attached a few photos and also one with a Kamiyoshi I recently acquired for comparison. The Nishigaki is on the larger size.

[christianmalterre]

Nice Antti !

 

attached you´ll find some more hint in your´s quest....

do read carefully!

do your´s homework and crossread with other info you can get...

do compare the timeframe certain in question artists did work, do afterward compare their´s work with the your´s...

you´ll find out a 70% correct attribution for yoursself. (just much better than a simple "Hozon call"...)

up to work now for you.....

 

 

[Ford Hallam]

"...before plating the tsuba in Shakudo" !

[zanilu]

christianmalterre may I ask you the title and author of the book from which you took those pages scan.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Luca

[christianmalterre]

this is not important for you Luca.

 

i definitely do NOT recomment, so to take these pages for grant!

 

(i just did try to lead Antti into a specific direction- as here, in this one single point,-modern research does congrue to some old (certainly not bad/ but equally not that useful ideas)

 

Christian

[Guido]

"...before plating the tsuba in Shakudo" !

 

Probably just a typo, Ford, I guess he meant "... before plating the tsuba in iron" - a secrect technique for which also the 1st gen. Hizen Tadayoshi was famous.

[Jussi Ekholm]

That looks very nice, I can't wait to see that one in person.

[Brian]

Lovely tsuba. I bet Curran and Pete will approve

[Pete Klein]

It's very nice indeed.

[DanielLee]

You could compare with the tsuba which I have too, papered to Kanshiro.

 

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/17668-some-pics-of-my-first-tsuba/

 

[Antti]

Thanks for the pics Daniel. What are the dimensions of your example? It looks smaller.

[Curran]

I've seen Antti's in person. I remember it being darker and wondering if there is a flash or just that northern lighting.

 

If you go through Ito's book enough and some of the others, one of repeat distinctions is the ways of carving lines (drawing)- especially mid-rib of leaf and the veins off it. It makes it easier to make a call between shodai and nidai, though Ito has one or two shodai that I would think nidai. I'm going to take his senior opinion over the pocketful of what I know.

            When I first saw Antti's I the way of doing the main midrib of the leaf is distinct. That and the differences between rendering of berries, leaf veins, etc. differ relatively consistently between shodai and nidai examples of the same design. I looked at the carving/drawing on Antti's that typical nidai wander onto the seppa dai and thought that maybe 40% nidai [Kanshiro] and 60% sandai [Nishigaki].

 

Sometimes the distinction between nidai and just playing it safe with a 'Nishigaki' call is a cointoss from shinsa to shinsa. There is one up on a Japanese dealer site with 'Nishigaki' papers that is almost photocopier identical to a papered nidai Kanshiro I owned and sold years ago.

[Antti]

Thanks for the comments.

 

I think it is the brown background that gives the tsuba that brown hue. In hand the patina is more grey than brown, but it's not very dark. I did not use flash and the northern lights werent there when I took the photos.

And there have been spectacular northern lights on few nights this fall by the way.

 

I took some shots with flash to bring out the detail on the carving.

 

[DanielLee]

Thanks for the pics Daniel. What are the dimensions of your example? It looks smaller.

 

The dimensions of mine are almost the same as yours, 8cm X 7.4xm.

[Michael 101]

Hi Antii,

 

Good too see some high quality Higo tsuba listed - Daniel's looks like it could be a daisho pair with yours and both look distinctly similar to my eye. The elongated round shape to both is very attractive and typical for earlier Nishigaki Kanshiro work. Interesting to note the shaping around the nakago ana of both tsuba - a feature found in a number of published 2nd master examples.

 

Its very difficult to capture the beautiful and correct colour of iron tsuba - your second picture I think would be closer to reality.

 

Thanks for showing

 

Kindest regards

Michael