Kozuka signed only with kao - help needed

[Jorgensen]

I have a Kozuka, that is only signed with Kao. Does anybody have an idea who made this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dimitri]

Splendid 😍

[Vermithrax16]

If you have the Haynes index you can try to run through it to match the kao. Unless someone here recognize it.

 

Would love to see more of this kozuka, looks interesting.

[Brian]

Have the same problem with multiple fittings. It's not easy.
If you have a copy of Shosankenshu, I find that to be the best place to start. But there is no easy way unless someone recognizes it.

[Jorgensen]

Thank you for your input.

 

As wished, a couple more pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

[dimitri]

it is really very well done, thank you for the additional photos. I Love it.

[rkg]

I hate it when I run into these.  Has anyone ever done a book or other compilation of kao by makers who were known sign (occasionally?) with just a kao?

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Vermithrax16]

I love the theme presented here on the kozuka, very cool.

 

I asked Markus Sesko a while back about a kao reference and I guess there's just no good way to put one together. I have a piece with just a kao, so I had asked.

[kissakai]

It's something I've thought about but it is a hard project

Maybe one for the winter

 

[Jorgensen]

I have written Markus Sesko about this one. I will gladly post, when I get reply. It might can help others in future hopefully. 

 

 

About theme presented on Kozuka as its descibed on my website:

 

Kozuka in Shakudō base with high relief inlaid with colored metals, copper, gold, silver. The image of the demon Hanya attacks a nobleman, as he struggles to free his sword from its scabbard. 

I wasn’t sure if this should be described as Shoki and demon, because this demon is a character in a Noh play, and isn’t usually associated with Shoki. It is Hanya who is a jealous woman in demon form, and she takes this form out of jealousy or some other rage.

 

[Ford Hallam]

For what it's worth...

 

To my eyes the work is of middling quality. Nothing particularly 'artistic' or individual in the way the figures are carved and rendered. Standard commercial workshop output, I would suggest. 

 

A single Kao and no mei on an average piece is rarely convincing I feel. I'd suggest it was added later to reassure a foreign souvenir collector perhaps.

 

As to the theme, the warrior is Ōmori Hikohichi, a 14th cent legendary character, who offered to give a young woman a lift over a stream. He sees 'her' real reflection in the water, as that of a demon. Depending on the tale version, she either runs away or he cuts her arm off. In one version as a theatre play she isn't a demon at all but is merely wearing a mask and has mistaken the warrior as her father's killer and she is after revenge.

 

The subject was evidently very popular on tosogu after Nara Toshinaga I (1667-1736) made his version, it's now a National Treasure. Okakua Kakuzo (The Book of Tea and student of Kano Natsuo) described Toshinaga's tsuba as probably the most famous tsuba in Japan.

 

 

 

[Matsunoki]

Interesting. Are we looking at true full mixed metal inlay, or rather multi patination or maybe a mixture of both?

[Ford Hallam]

This is Toshinaga's tsuba, with the gold mei. The one below is an unsigned utsushi, I think by one of the early 20th cent professors at Geidai Art School in Tokyo, Shimizu Nanzan (1875 - 1948). He was himself a student of Kano natsuo at the Geidai. Both Hagia Katsuhira and Unno Shomin produced remarkable utsushi of the piece too. It remains an aim of my own.