Tea Sword

[BIG]

A mystery ...

http://www.simonpilling.co.uk/catalogue2015/pages2015/SJP%20cat%202015.pdf

 

Best Regards

[John A Stuart]

I've seen a couple of these over the years. None as artful as this however. John

[Bugyotsuji]

Freezes my screen so I have given up trying to see it.

[Bugyotsuji]

Barry, thanks for the pm with link. As John says above. They tend to be listed and collected by Netsuke enthusiasts, and besides the appellation Chato, you will also see them referred to as Doctors' swords, or Bokuto for Doctors, for the tea ceremony, etc. Admittedly they cause some scratching of heads and some debate as to who would have worn these, why and when.

 

They do come up now and again. You can see examples in museums. Last week I saw one in the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. There were a couple on sale in an antiques shop in London. There is a thread somewhere on the INS Netsuke Society pages:

http://forums.netsuke.org/

[John A Stuart]

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/18980/lot/82/

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22815/lot/82/

[Sakura]

Another chatou (length 54 cm), see attached pdf-file.

 

Edit: sorry, the pdf-file was very large, so I did convert it to a smaller jpg before uploading.

[Bugyotsuji]

Sweet object. Someone needs to do a definitive study of their usage.