Help with Kanji

[Spartancrest]

I am struggling to see any similarity with the last character in this image, is it once again a sort of short-hand version or does it represent the wrong kanji?

芳園刻; [Transliteration] Hôen kizamu; [Translation] Engraved by Hôen.  Thanks in advance.

[MauroP]

芳園鐫 - Hōen horu (Hōen carved)?

[Spartancrest]

Fantastic Mauro!  I will have the Walters Museum make a correction [one of many] and they need a spell checker as well!

 

Thanks very much. 

[Spartancrest]

The museum has done it again - this one is incomplete I think it is a date? Missing three characters. Any Idea's?

Mauro's last post helped fill the bottom kanji with this one also - Once again thanks Mauro.

 

[Bugyotsuji]

1826 文政九 was a dog year, 戌 (inu).

[SteveM]

Following on from Piers

文政九戌春彫鐫

[Spartancrest]

Thank you all very much NMB at its best! - I have passed the new information along to the Walters Art Museum so hopefully their records will go on to help many more people in the future. 

[Spartancrest]

 

I think there is a full time job translating Japanese signatures here!

[SteveM]

應二穐 doesn't really make sense to me. 

慶應二穐 (Autumn Keiō 2) would make sense, but just the three kanji feels like too drastic of an abbreviation. 

I'm not convinced that the first one is 應. It looks more like 意, but 意 doesn't help me understand the mei any better than 應. 

Sorry, not much help this time. 

[Spartancrest]

Thanks very much Steve - if it is confusing for you imagine how confused I am with no Kanji skills at all!  Do we always assume these artists were great spellers? 

Certainly some needed more hand writing experience.   I can only reproduce what the Museum has tried to translate - but some of their mistakes are pretty clear when seen side by side. A couple of question marks in the text can't really hurt, it leaves the door open for future study -  I am in a bit of a rush now to get these books out before Christmas but it looks like New Year to me, eight hundred pages is a lot to check through.

Thanks again for trying, NMB really has many talented members.

[MauroP]

Steve was right, but given the data it was an impossibile task, so better go to the original image.

After a little “photoshopping” a faint single stroke coud be seen, giving coherence to the whole:
慶應二穐  一之作 – Autumn 1866, Kazuyuki saku.
So a a collaborative tsuba, since is signed Hashimoto Isshi on ura side.
Possibly another Kazuyuki collaborative tsuba can be seen here: https://varshavskycollection.com/collection/tsu-0079/

[Spartancrest]

You are right Mauro - I must have cut the top of that image off [comes with working too late in the night.]

That single stroke is almost gone even with photo enhancement. Great spotting. 

The museum has several gaps in the signature on the ura side as well, but at least they have the English name translation as you say "Hashimoto Isshi" (1)

Going back to the Varshavskycollection piece I wonder if the "missing" snake might have been on the other half of the daisho? (not shown) Speculation.

 

 

I have lots more kanji to find and fix - but I am getting a little weary of it and might end up presenting just what the museum has in some cases. Won't be great work but I think I have run out of steam.

Thanks yet again for the help.