Dragon in clouds Tsuba - Which school?

[Kurikata]

HI,

 

I have little information on this tsuba. Can someone help me in giving ideas about a specific school ? Size is 6,9 cm * 6,5 cm

 

Thank you

 

 

[Spartancrest]

Hi Bruno, there seems to be the sound of crickets in the distance - no responses?

Having just done a little book on the tsuba collection in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I have noted a very close example to your piece.

AK-MAK-1110. Like yours it has the dragon coming up from the bottom of the guard [most have the dragon looking down] and the swirling clouds are also very close. The major difference is the free form hitsu-ana. Unfortunately the museum does not give a school attribution. I also seem to remember Vajo [Chris Sch.] was looking into a similar dragon design a little while back which I will try to locate.

 

Just found the link but it may not be of much help as the design is different: 

 

[Kurikata]

Hi Dale,

 

I hihgly appreciate your efforts to answer to this thread.  "One responds to the madman with silence" says Hazrat Ali (born 599) . I must be crasy to ask such questions about my tsuba! But indeed I found very little information on its style and design. I found the design quite elegant and the mix of sentoku and shakudo plugging the hitsu ana was appealing to me.

 

Thank you

[GRC]

Bruno, nice dragon tsuba. The plugged hitsu definitely add to the aesthetics 

But I think the silence is warranted because it's so hard to attribute dragon styles with specific schools because so many schools used the same style dragons.

 

The only exception to that so far , for me anyway, is the Jakushi dragons which are pretty distinct, and the school was pretty consistent with their "dragon style" over many generations.

So all I can clearly add to this, is that yours is not a Jakushi dragon 

There's always the distinct Kinai/Umetada dragon design, and a few others, but again, yours is not one of the ones that is instantly identifiable.

 

Good luck with the quest...

I also have a dragon tsuba that I'd love to know the origin of, but sadly will probably never find out...  

[GRC]

these two, especially the first one, have  a similar "feel" to yours:

still no idea who made them though...