Question on Heijano Tsuba

[TheGermanBastard]

I have this Heijano Tsuba and wonder if it is an earlier Type and if the some of the inlay work is missing or wheter it  was supposed to be tht way in the first place?

[ChrisW]

Has it suffered fire damage possibly?

[FlorianB]

I think it’s a later work, which isn’t as elaborate executed as older ones. The kiku blossom on the back side is missing (the empty circle).

Maybe the tendrils should have been filled with brass wire, too, but either all has gone or it was never completed.
However the carved tendrils make a nice contrast to the filled areas so take it as a study piece.

Florian

[TheGermanBastard]

@ Chris, no I do not think that there is fire damage. "Just" poor condition due to corrosion.

 

@ Florian: Thank you for your remarks and pointing out the missing Kiku blossom! I had missed this.

 

I suppose this is just a simple work in poor condition then. Whetter the inlays got lost or did not get ever added in the 1st place is to remain unknown. The disappointing result is however the same in the end

[Steves87]

Apologies I cannot really answer your questions, The Tsuba below has fire damage, but I assume it would have been something along the same lines.

[Henry Wilson]

The deliberate absence of inlay would be the requisite of a relatively high level of wabicha aesthetic. I think it would have been wasted on and misunderstood by the target customer (hey, I'm not buying this the inlays missing!) to be honest. So I would say that the Inlay was there but it got lost sometime.

 

As far as categorising things go, the tsuba above have a brass colour inlay to be sure, but are they Heianjo zogan? I feel they are lacking something IMO. I would say Shoami based on what I see and my reptilian intuition.

[Henry Wilson]

The second one Heianjo zogan, but the first?

[FlorianB]

If we assume, the tendrils should have been contain brass wire, a later Heinajo-style attribution is acceptable.

We can only speculate, why this Tsuba shows the todays appearance, but with all due respect I would be careful to connect a decent quality with wabi-sabi aesthetic.

There has been a discussion about this subject a time ago ( http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/26501-which-of-your-tsubas-best-embodies-the-wabi-sabi-aesthetic/?hl=wabi-sabi ) and a lot could be learned from this great thread about it.

 

Florian

[Henry Wilson]

Thank you for the comments Florian.

 

with all due respect I would be careful to connect a decent quality with wabi-sabi aesthetic.

This is very true and something I am quite aware of. My point is that relatively speaking, the first tsuba's condition and quality would be more indicative of lost zogan rather than a deliberate design feature IMHO.

[TheGermanBastard]

Thank you again guys for your taking your time to look at the tsuba and your comments. It was educational.

 

Brian, cany ou please remove this topic.

[Ford Hallam]

From early Chinese texts we can say for certain that brass, when first manufactured, was regarded very highly and as a fair substitute for gold, ranking just below the real thing. As such it was kept in a highly polished state. 

It would appear that, so called, Onin guards are merely old tosho tsuba that were 'pimped' with the fancy new and fashionable brass alloy. The evidence is increasingly pointing to an early 17th century (early 1600's) introduction of brass to Japan.

[FlorianB]

I'm astonished that shinchu was invented not before 1600 because some brass ornamented Tsuba are dated back to Muromachi-period could be found. All of them elder Tsuba which has been overworked later?

 

I wondered still in the past why brass was so highly esteemed, even today they are highly prized by Japanese collectors while western people often think it inferior.
I don’t believe the shinchu production too laborious so I think the restrained lustre (in comparision to gold) fits perfectly to the Japanese sense of aestetics.

Florian

[zanilu]

Luis why are you asking to delete all your recent posts?

[Henry Wilson]

 

 

Have we upset you?

[TheGermanBastard]

Hello Henry, no absolutely not! Your remarks in this topic are most helpfull and appreciated. Thank you very much for having taken your time and shared your thoughts with me. Since I am limiing / focusing myelf to a single project now my duscission topics ar ekind of ghosted without the topic started engaging in the discission anymore.

[Gunome]

Hello Luis,

 

What about just request to lock the topic instead of delete it ?!

The information provided will be stil available and could benefit for everybody.

[Henry Wilson]

Something on zinc with references to brass

 

China’s emerging demand and

development of a key base

metal: Zinc in the Ming and

early Qing, c. 1400–1680s

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359183517702686

[Ford Hallam]

I'm astonished that shinchu was invented not before 1600 because some brass ornamented Tsuba are dated back to Muromachi-period could be found. All of them elder Tsuba which has been overworked later?

 

I wondered still in the past why brass was so highly esteemed, even today they are highly prized by Japanese collectors while western people often think it inferior.

I don’t believe the shinchu production too laborious so I think the restrained lustre (in comparision to gold) fits perfectly to the Japanese sense of aestetics.

 

Florian

 

You'd need to ask the Japanese authorities on what basis they date these Muromachi period pieces, and the brass inlay work also? I cant find any reliable evidence offered for these claims.

 

You don't "believe" shinchu production was too laborious.....well in fact it was quite a technological feat to isolate zinc and thereafter to produce consistent brass alloy.  Japan only discovered it had zinc at the very end of the 19th cent. so was reliant on imports of metallic zinc from China to make brass. 

[FlorianB]

Thank You for clarification. In the future I will try to avoid to publish personal speculations.
I just can refer to dates given in different sources. In how far these dates are reliable I can’t work out. Maybe those could be pure assumptions by sellers or collectors.

Also it seems that the terms “shinchu” and “sentoku” are mixed up.

Florian

[Ford Hallam]

Florian,

 

no problem on my part.   It is a minefield of invention actually. What seems to have happened at the end of the 19th century is that a handful of Japanese collectors fancied themselves as scholars and created the history of tosogu to provide a sort of scholarly framework to legitimise their appreciation of tsuba and fittings. In fact this was pretty much usual practice among the Europe aristocracy in relation to art collecting, until a slightly more  objective creature, the professional art scholar and connoisseur evolved. It often seems to me that the background history of much of tosogu, especially the earliest works, suffers from this initial amateur 'creativity.'

 

And yes, shinchu and sentoku are two very different alloys.  Shinchu is brass made with metallic zinc, Brass made before that development, using calamine (the zinc mineral), is correctly called Chuseki. Sentoku is a very late adaptation of the Chinese alloy Xuande bronze ( same kanji to write both btw) however analysis of late 19th cent. Japanese sentoku is quite different to the Chinese Xuande.