Tosho or Katchushi tsuba?

[Ford Hallam]

Just a bit of fun...what would be your guess as to who made this tsuba? A tosho or katchushi?

It's mid Edo...ish :D ...and if you do know this particular tsuba please don't spoil it for the others

 

[Markus]

I know the piece so I´m out of the race.

[Martin]

I don´t know this piece, but I would say neither Tosho nor Katchushi

But I guess, that´s not what you wanted to hear... :D

[Brian]

I must be a real novice too, as I don't see tosho or katchushi here either

If I were forced to pick one though, I would go with katchushi due to the more intricate workings and sukashi.

But I smell trickery here anyways :lol:

 

Brian

[Rich S]

I would also tend to go with "C" - none of the above.

 

Rich S

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

I know it

[Rich T]

Just as it's for fun.......... I'll go with Tosho, just because no one else is, plus the Edo Tosho made some very fine (as in delicate) sukashi tsuba,

 

Rich

[cspage]

Actually, it's a pretzel, made by the little German pretzel maker down the street who, after a memorable holiday in Japan in the 1950's, always dreamed of making a large pretzel in the shape of a tsuba. I'm sure of it.

[Ford Hallam]

he he...thanks for playing along chaps :D . Brian is of course right to suspect some deviousness from me...but Rich T is atari never the less

 

Here's the mei;

 

 

Yes, you read it right :D This was made by Nagasone Kotetsu. Most definitely a tosho.

 

I find it a very interesting tsuba in it's own right. The, very precise, workmanship is what you'd expect of a such a highly skilled smith but the, almost mechanical, severity of the actual design is most revealing to me. I think that in a little way this reflects the absolute control his hamon display...as though nothing is allowed to chance. Perhaps even a little too controlled. It makes me wonder about the famous Musashi tsuba ( the fuller one in Sasano's book ) and if Musashi made blades what his hamon would look like.

 

regards,

 

Ford

[John A Stuart]

Too fast Ford, I was still figuring out my bid. Ach, well, the faint hearted, eh? BTW what's the mei? I can't see it. John

 

How the heck did that happen? Your post changed as I was writing mine. All is clear now. Kotetsu, never in a million years would I have thought of him.

[John A Stuart]

Just to discuss the 'what if?' of Musashi. Given he was a rambunctious and fractious youth, I think he would have made a flamboyant hamon early in life. A mature man he later would have refined and quelled his earlier rebelliousness and in a calmer spirit his hamon would have been more subdued, sugu or ko-choji for instance. His ukioye show simple flowing brush strokes, his carvings in wood (Guan Yi or Kannon example) detailed and meticulous and the famous Namako tsuba restrained. My thoughts anyway. John

[Ford Hallam]

Hi John...sorry to have ended the game too soon...I'll think up another

 

I'm absolutely with you on the Musashi idea. It was in fact his brushwork that first got me thinking about his real spirit. It's very powerful yet quite unaffected...what I like to call uncontrived, something that for me is the mark of a sublime artist. How that may have translated into a sword made by him is an idea that is quite excite to ponder. After all, his version of the sea cucumber design tsuba is very distinctive and subtle in it's shaping...

 

regards,

 

ford

[Rich T]

Bugger , in all seriousness, he was (Nagasone Kotetsu) the first guy I went to, because of the control in the work. I scanned about 6 books this morning early and found enough sukashi examples but it was all heavier than this, so I left it. More the fool me for not taking the chance.

 

Nice guard Ford, the execution of the sukashi is superb.

 

Rich

[Rich T]

Just to discuss the 'what if?' of Musashi. Given he was a rambunctious and fractious youth, I think he would have made a flamboyant hamon early in life. A mature man he later would have refined and quelled his earlier rebelliousness and in a calmer spirit his hamon would have been more subdued, sugu or ko-choji for instance. His ukioye show simple flowing brush strokes, his carvings in wood (Guan Yi or Kannon example) detailed and meticulous and the famous Namako tsuba restrained. My thoughts anyway. John

 

It's interesting to read "Lives of master swordsman" which is supposed to be the closest account of Musashi's life, and how they portray him as a drunk, vagabond and womaniser for a lot of his life. I wonder if he would have been capable of producing anything that controlled LOL, but then one only has to look at his artwork to know he was a real artist.

 

Rich

[John A Stuart]

Ha ha ha, that's true Rich. You see the same things in a lot of artists lives. Total chaos in their personal lives, living on the edge of madness, hence, the prevalence to mind altering substances to cope. I think their artwork may help to keep their minds somewhat ordered and give an outward sense of stability. I'm generalising of course, but, you can't deny the turmoil in the lives of most of the great ones. Too, in Musashi's case, being a ronin most of his life and unable to settle shows his intemperance until he reached his maturity, becoming, eventually, a vassal of Hosokawa Tadatoshi. It was in the final months when he turned inward and lived a rather stoic and solitary life until his death. Barring the mythos he has and reading the true history of the man, he still impresses me. I spent many hours on a few occasions in the cave at Reigando, seeking inspiration. The whole area is a very hilly area outside Kumamoto and life is rural, a very beautiful part of Japan. John

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

This was made by Nagasone Kotetsu. Most definitely a tosho.

 

 

Huuummmm, that tsuba was made in (around) 1656, and at this time Kotetsu still worked as a katchushi (there is an Odagote made the same year). The oldest blade i've found is dated Mereki 4.

 

I would say both responses are good. :D

[Ford Hallam]

:D trust you, Jacques, to find hole in my cunning attempt to undermine the whole tosho/katchushi classification...still, perhaps you have help me blur the distinction even more

[Brian]

I wasn't expecting that.

For a change, your ability to look for the counterpoint made me laugh Jacques Good point there.

Consider the lines even more blurry that ever.

 

Brian

[Markus]

I would say both responses are good. :D

 

I think that hits it on the nail, because the tsuba uses the character (奥) for "Oki",

and Kotetsu used this from Meireki 2 (1656) to Manji 4 (1661). Afterwards, he used

the character (興). So when we follow the theory that he went to Edo quite early

in the Meireki period (1655-1658), this tsuba comes exactly under what I would

say as "transitional period" from katchûshi to tôshô.

 

This tsuba is also depicted in the "100 Tsuba and Sword Accessories" from where

I know it, and interestingly, it is exactly depicted beside of the namako-sukashi

of Musashi.

[Curran]

Hmm- I would not have gotten this correct.

Ford ended it before I remembered to put in a bid. I was torn as a fellow collector has a beautiful but atypical ko-akasaka (NBTHK) that has some very similar details in execution, but much heavier than this refined tsuba. I couldn't call it Tadashige work.

 

I wasn't sure what to make of it, and the answer is a stunner. Hat off to Rich.

 

Curran