Rookie Tsuba Questions

[StanJS]

I just joined the board and know nothing about tsuba. My area of interest has been collecting Japanese woodblock prints. I am attracted to a tsuba coming up at a local auction and could use some help. Probably the standard novice questions:

 

1) Is this tsuba the real thing? The auction house claims it is bronze.

2) What should I look for when I preview it?

3) How much should I be willing to bid for it?

4) What can you tell me about it?

5) Anything else I forgot?

 

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Stan

[Thierry BERNARD]

5) Anything else I forgot?

 

picture is upside down turn it 180° thanks

 

hitsu ana look strange

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Stan

 

looks to me as though someone has photo-shopped a lacquer design onto a perfectly legitimate iron tsuba. The lacquer design seems to have been placed there with no real understanding of how a tsuba functions, it's also upside down.

 

The speckled, grey infill looks like an addition to me as well.

So; in answer to your questions;

 

1) No...and the basic tsuba is iron.

2) I'll be amazed if you get to handle it because I don't think it exists :D

3) see answer 2.

4) what can you tell us about it....?

5) no idea..

 

have fun, regards, Ford

[Brian]

This one actually made me laugh.

If it is as it appears, someone went to town on an iron tsuba. As pointed out, the tsuba is upside down. So if you turn it the right way up, then the design and butterfly are upside down. So whover did it didn't have a clue about tsuba.

Also the design totally ignores the fact that you have a seppa placed over some of the lacquer.

Some good points to look for when examining a tsuba at first.

 

Brian

[DSweet]

Novice that i am, i have to agree with Ford. I have rarely seen genuine tsuba where the design runs into the seppa-dai, but i believe this is something that is not typically done.

 

Tsuba does look to be iron. The inlay/lacquer work looks suspect, and i am not sure what to make of the speckled gray areas. If i were you, i would trust Ford *edit* and Brian's */edit* opinion on this.

 

-Donovan

[StanJS]

Hi Stan

1) No...and the basic tsuba is iron.

2) I'll be amazed if you get to handle it because I don't think it exists :D

3) see answer 2.

4) what can you tell us about it....?

5) no idea..

 

First, thank you all for your opinions. It looks like I will be using this as a learning experience - not a bidding experience.

 

Responding to Ford...

 

1) So that is why I was able to find only 4 bronze tsuba when I searched past eBay sales.

2) It does exist. I have gone to auctions at this place before and made some very fortuitous woodblock purchases. You have to know what you are doing. The house make no claims of authenticity and sells on an "as is, as found" basis. I'll take a close look at it. I'll try to get some pics if I remember to take my camera and report back.

3) No bid. Pass.

4) Everything I know I told you above. That is all the information in the catalog.

5) Thanks for that.

 

Looks like I better learn more about these things (or not buy them :? ).

 

Thanks all,

Stan

[Brian]

Stan,

 

What Ford meant was that in this case, the base is iron, not bronze. Not on all tsuba. In most cases the alloys won't be bronze as such, but a Japanese alloy, and I guess novices just call it bronze.

Ford is just poking fun at the fantasy aspect of this one...it does look like a joke photoshop job. Don't take the comments about it not existing too literally

In this case, you learned a bit about tsuba..which is far more valuable than a bid on this oddity. Don't worry..we all start off from scratch and learn from there.

I would love to know what this does end up selling for.

 

Brian

[IanB]

Stan, I hate to disagree with some of the points raised but the leaf and the flower are not upside down with regard to the tsuba. You could argue the butterfly is or it might just be flying down to the flower. What I agree with is that it couldn't be used on a sword but I don't think it was really meant to. I think it is a genuine tsuba that has been embellished with lacquer to sell it to a tourist in the Meiji period. Without seeing it in the flesh it is impossible to say what they have used to fill the holes in the original tsuba with. If I'm correct, and it goes cheaply, it is an interesting and rare survivor of a period when a lot of artists were struggling to live and were trying all sorts of stunts to get money out of tourists.

 

Ian Bottomley

[Stephen]

lets see what it looks like this way

[Brian]

Ian,

 

We certainly don't mind counter points of course, they lead to interesting discussions.

I'll give it to you that rotated, the design doesn't appear as bad, and might not be upside down. However (and i did consider the meiji lacqerwork theory) the ana would have no place on the tsuba if it was not cut out, and if it was just filled, then the shape was bad to begin with.

I would put the theory forward (hesitantly) that maybe this was made as a late Meiji tourist trinket piece, but its origin was just based on a tsuba design, and it was never one to begin with?

 

Discuss.

 

Brian

 

Edit to remove the rotated pic that I see Stephen just took care of

[Ford Hallam]

Actually I'm still of the opinion that this so called lacquer design of an iron tsuba only exists in a jpeg format. I don't believe for a minute that this image is anything more than a composite of two separate images.

 

One of the giveaways, to my mind, is the rather odd, white "highlights" in the two areas that are worn, on the main flower. This looks just like a photoshop, cut and paste artifact.

 

The definition of the lacquer itself is less clear than the iron tsuba is is supposed to be lying on. The odd interruption of shadows on the iron when it reaches the lacquer,the vague fading where the lacquer meets the iron, the totally unconvincing brown stem of the flower...etc

 

I may be wrong ...but going by these images I am happy to stick to my opinion. As for the idea that this is a random bit of Meiji decoration meant for an undiscerning export market, I believe this "composition" is far too inept too have been created by a real artist/artisan.

 

I wait to see more evidence...

 

provocatively yours,

 

Ford

 

ps, and now that it's the right way up we still need to flip it side to side, ie; hitsu-ana to the left and the flower on the right...

[Guest reinhard]

Ian is perfectly right. These objects were never meant to be mounted on a sword; not even to be given away as gifts like some top-class kodogu of Edo-times. They were exclusively made for export and had to match western taste. Regular criteria for appreciating tsuba cannot be applied here. The seppa-dai is of no importance anymore and lacquer was used just like soft-metal in earlier times.

These are Tsuba-looking objects, not Tsuba in the true sense of the word. Some of them show outstanding qualities of craftsmanship nevertheless and the good ones are quite sought after in Japan, for most of them left the country for obvious reasons.

 

reinhard

[Ford Hallam]

Regular criteria for appreciating tsuba cannot be applied here. The seppa-dai is of no importance anymore

 

so even if I consider this to be real...just for the sake of argument, why not fill the nakago ana too and be done with it? No need to constrict the design at all then. In addition, there is no reason either why the butterfly should impinge on the seppa dai, it can so easily be moved. Unless of course it is part of a lacquer design off something else and it's relationship is only to the rest of the lacquer and not the tsuba underneath. :?

 

Perhaps it's just my monitor but all I see is a lacquer design floating above an iron tsuba...it simply doesn't convince me that they are one.

[Stephen]

Ford dont know if this helps, i cant tell for sure but the power of suggestion is strong and if i look at it too long it floats

 

is it possible that is bake on like enamel? and not lacqure?

[Guest reinhard]

....but all I see is a lacquer design floating above an iron tsuba...it simply doesn't convince me that they are one.

 

This is not uncommon. I'd like to show you another example described as "...The surface has a later decoration in lacquer depicting a blossoming morning glory on a bamboo trellis...". It was once part of the Compton-collection. From a Japanese point of view it was quite reasonable to take (iron) tsuba of minor quality and decorate them with lacquerwork in order to sell them, for most of the westerners didn't know anything about good tsuba anyway. It remains an argument if things have really changed since.

 

reinhard

[Ford Hallam]

That's a great example of what we're discussing, Reinhard.

 

I am familiar with these, I once owned an example myself, but my contention is that the example that started this thread is not actually real at all.

 

The image you've posted is completely "believable" because we can see the expected shadows etc, where the lacquer lies on the iron. The composition appears to have been more carefully arranged too. There's a bit of damage that actually shows the iron underneath and the way the lacquer appears to have a sort of raised edge, or cushion, where it meets the nakago and hitsu ana, these aspects are absent on the first example. As are any really convincing reflections and shadows around the lacquer.

 

As I said at the outset, It just looks like a poor photo-shop job to me. I'm happy to admit I'm mistaken if I could see an image of it taken from an angle that would show the decoration in a realistic way though.

 

and for what it's worth...it's spawned a good discussion

 

regards, Ford

[IanB]

Reinhard,

I think your second example is good evidence that embellishments with lacquer was not unknown. In fact the two examples are so similar they may have been made in the same workshop. On the same tack, (and let me say I know nothing of tsuba), I suspect this technique had a much longer history. We all keep coming across iron tsuba, often signed, yet without a vestige of decoration. Were these also decorated in this way originally? I know from my armour experience that lacquering iron isn't always a success. Getting the first coat to stick involves heating the metal before the base coat is added. Get it wrong and the lacquer flakes off. Were these plain iron plates originally decorated with lacquer that has failed to stand the test of time? An interesting thought.

 

Ian Bottomley

[Martin]

Hi all,

 

maybe this could be an interesting read here...

 

http://www.nihontokanjipages.com/forum/ ... .php?id=70

 

cheers,

[Brian]

Thanks for the link Martin.

Maybe not having that artist's eye, I am not as doubtful as to the item's existence as Ford, but I think before we find a disagreement where there isn't one, I think I will point out that no-one here is calling this a good tsuba by any means, whether it is one, was one, or will never be one. No arguments that as a tsuba, it is bad. As a random iron work, it isn't good either. Maybe as an example of late Meiji period export work it is valid (assuming it is that) but even without the laquer and filling of the ana, it is just plain mediocrity I think.

Worst case scenario, it is a plate of iron with laquer added to try and "doll it up" to make it more attractive. Best case scenario, it is a bad tsuba that was messed with to "doll it up" to fool Westerners. Either way, unless you collect Meiji period laquer work that was made for Westerners, it isn't all that interesting to a tsuba collector. I have no doubt there are good tsuba out there with laquer added later for the export market or otherwise, but this isn't one.

Agreed?

 

Brian

[Ford Hallam]

just a thought...Stan,

 

do you have the name of the Auction house where this tsuba can be viewed?, their address and the lot number would be handy too.

 

thanks, Ford