Heianjo or what else?

[zanilu]

Dear All

This is one of my recent acquisitions:

 

 

Size 94.4 mm x 94.2 mm, thickness; at seppa dai 4.5 mm at mimi 3.9 mm.

The motif I think ois Grapes and vines (budo tsuru kusa-zu) and sukashi is Genji-mon. What is your opinion? 

 

The iron look similar to other Heianjo Zogan tsuba  with a nice chocolate brown color and prone to corrosion as in many examples of this "school" (if Heianjo can be considered a school and not a style). The tsuba is thin but not too thin with it 4 mm uniform thickness. So looking just at the iron, its conditions and thickness I would put it around Azuchi/Momoyama.

Looking at the inlay I see some missing parts, as expected given the age, and some oddities.

I took some pictures of the tsuba with a USB microscope. In a couple of points there is an overlapping of the inlays that I have never seen before on Heianjo Zogan tsuba. Maybe there have been some repairs?

 

 

Also there are zones of cross hatching on the base iron that look like the preparation for nunome zogan. 

 

 

In these regions there are ghost-like circles of the same dimensions of the grapes inlaid in hira zogan on other areas . 

 

I have the impression that some of the grapes have been rendered in nunome zogan that was then lost but protected the underlying material from corrosion since the ghost circles in the hatched regions are somewhat raised over the cross hatched areas. 

 

Since I have never seen papered Heianjo zogan tsuba with nunome zogan I am for discarding this attribution. Maybe we can consider Shoami?

These are my first, chaotic impressions, I could be utterly wrong of course.
Comments are more than welcome...

Best regards
Luca

[roger dundas]

I would be happy to own this one too-well done, well considered IMO.

Roger 2

[Spartancrest]

I like your evidence based reasoning - far better than unsupported opinion.  It is a worthy acquisition to anyone's collection.

The sukashi patterns may be linked to 'Tale of Genji' 

[Ford Hallam]

To me this looks be be a fairly non controversial Heian-jo type guard. I would debate the Momoyama dating, I think that the introduction of brass inlay needs to, at least be brought forward from the Onin period the the late 1500's, more reasonably perhaps early 1600's.

 

Similarly nunome-zogan would appear to be a later technical adoption, from Korea it seems, and comes some time after wire and flat inlay. So I'd suggest the nunome decoration traces was a later addition.

I don't think the leaves look like grape vines though, a case of mistaken identity maybe 

[zanilu]

Dear all

 

Thank all of you for your comments.

 

Dale thank you for the table.

 

Ford I know your point about the brass introduction and when I wrote Azuchi/Momoyama I was really thinking about the end of the period. Thus I am ok with your assessment of early 1600.

I had also the impression that the nunome zogan was a later addition but I had no points about it so I kept silent on this point. Coming from you has an altogether different weight 

 

Being no botanist I said grape vines only due to the small circles. If any of the other member has a better attribution I will not dispute it.

 

Best Regards

Luca

 

[Jacques]

Heianjo or kaga ? As I don't know much about tsuba, I never knew the difference.

[kissakai]

I know less than Jacques but isn't Kaga a wider inlay?