Comments about this Tsuba?

[Caracal]

Comments about this Tsuba,

School?

Tsuba artist/maker?

*Circular iron sukashi tsuba carved as a six-lobed flower, the interior with stylized bracken ferns.

 

Thanks for your help

 

//Robert

[SteveM]

I would have said Owari or Akasaka, but as I was looking around for references I saw an identical one on Yahoo, papered to Shōami. 

(And, I just found a similar one advertised in Europe, labeled - but not papered to - Owari). 

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

1 hour ago, SteveM said:

I would have said Owari or Akasaka, but as I was looking around for references I saw an identical one on Yahoo, papered to Shōami. 

(And, I just found a similar one advertised in Europe, labeled - but not papered to - Owari). 

and this is why i have lost faith in getting things papered that I am unsure about LOL

[Spartancrest]

See the same design here with embellishments - https://drouot.com/e...fer-japon-milieu-de-    Ascribed to Owari

 

[SteveM]

↑ That's the one I saw. 

 

And here's a screen grab of the papered one (Shōami) from Yahoo Japan. I like the design, and I think I like Robert's the best out of these. Looks just a bit more delicate, but that may be a trick of lighting. Anyway, a nice-looking tsuba. 

 

[MauroP]

Symmetrical hitsu-ana makes me lean to ko-Shōami. Kyō-sukashi could also be considered.

[Spartancrest]

1 hour ago, MauroP said:

Symmetrical hitsu-ana

 

I love those Cheshire Cat hitsu!  

[1kinko]

Not Batman?

[FlorianB]

Hi,

 

I found this picture in my photo collection:

 

I think I've copied it from Aoi Art in January.

The description says: Kyo Sukashi, 8.25cm x 8.50 cm x 0.53cm, Edo period, 67g

There must be a Hozon paper for this piece, but I haven't copied it.

 

Best, Florian

[Caracal]

Hi

 

This Tsuban comes from Aoi Art I Japan and is attributed to Kyo-Sukashi. It has a Hozon paper.

The reason I ask about its origin is because I have seen several similar Tsuba from collectors, auction houses and others where they refer from different schools.
I can see that they are similar to the Tsuba I have but it is different if you look at Kozuka hitsuana and one has papers from NBTHK Shoami, mine has NBTHK Kyoto.

 

I also found a similar one that has been sold at Christie's auction house with description

CHRISTIES AUCTIONS 2007, A Higo Tsuba, Edo period (18th century), inscribed Shigemitsu
Circular iron sukashi tsuba carved as a six-lobed flower blossom, the interior with stylized bracken ferns.

https://www.christie...m=salessummary&lid=1

 

So my final comment is who to believe, and how to know provenance/school with so many opinions, the most wonder is about NBTHK different descriptions.

What do you think?

 

Thanks for all the help and interest in this tsuba.

//Robert

[Bugyotsuji]

It has been said repeatedly that Kyoto artisans tended to cut their sukashi edges with a diagonal slant.

[sabiji]

I don't see a problem with the different attributions. Especially in the late Muromachi, Momoyama and early Edo periods, the different workshops in Kyoto will have influenced each other strongly anyway.
The tsuba combines characteristics that speak for (Ko) Shoami as well as for the Kyo-Sukashi type.
The hitsu ana, which are formed from extremely slender-looking myoga, are typically very wide for shoami. However, the elongated and slender seppadai and the symmetrical basic concept of the design make the pendulum swing more towards the kyo sukashi type. 

 

[Caracal]

Thanks for your explanations Thomas and Piers.

I get to read more about these tsuba schools and that period.

 

//Robert

[MauroP]

13 hours ago, sabiji said:

I don't see a problem with the different attributions. Especially in the late Muromachi, Momoyama and early Edo periods, the different workshops in Kyoto will have influenced each other strongly anyway.

Well, Thomas, actually I see a problem if at the best of knowledge the top experts give inconsistent or variable attributions. The point is simply nobody knows for sure, the attributions are no more than educated opinions. Present day believes, though different, are not better founded than those experts in the field erpressed one hundred years ago. The whole thing looks to me more like religion than chemistry. It's not science. Nontheless it's an amusing activity try to tune with this kind of exoterics...

[Steves87]

Mauro, exactly what I have been thinking for years (in terms of getting an item papered). The whole system of papering an item is very much a pre-web 2.0 system. I think it was important up until the 2010's, but these days it very much comes across as a boys club, or like you say, religion. Is there any transparency to the process/decisions when papering? 

Edited March 23 by Steves87
Spelling

[Iaido dude]

On 3/22/2024 at 6:49 AM, Caracal said:

Hi

 

This Tsuban comes from Aoi Art I Japan and is attributed to Kyo-Sukashi. It has a Hozon paper.

The reason I ask about its origin is because I have seen several similar Tsuba from collectors, auction houses and others where they refer from different schools.
I can see that they are similar to the Tsuba I have but it is different if you look at Kozuka hitsuana and one has papers from NBTHK Shoami, mine has NBTHK Kyoto.

 

I also found a similar one that has been sold at Christie's auction house with description

CHRISTIES AUCTIONS 2007, A Higo Tsuba, Edo period (18th century), inscribed Shigemitsu
Circular iron sukashi tsuba carved as a six-lobed flower blossom, the interior with stylized bracken ferns.

https://www.christie...m=salessummary&lid=1

 

So my final comment is who to believe, and how to know provenance/school with so many opinions, the most wonder is about NBTHK different descriptions.

What do you think?

 

Thanks for all the help and interest in this tsuba.

//Robert

This is your sukashi mounted on your katana, I presume. If you practice iaido or tameshigiri, do you find it at all unusual or impractical to have your thumb on the top where the tsuba is notched rather than on one of the lobes (if it had been designed rotated slightly)? See a modern day tsuba based on a classic quatrefoil design on one of my iaito. The thumb rests on a flat surface actually. 

 

[sabiji]

On 3/23/2024 at 2:48 AM, MauroP said:

Well, Thomas, actually I see a problem if at the best of knowledge the top experts give inconsistent or variable attributions. The point is simply nobody knows for sure, the attributions are no more than educated opinions. Present day believes, though different, are not better founded than those experts in the field erpressed one hundred years ago. The whole thing looks to me more like religion than chemistry. It's not science. Nontheless it's an amusing activity try to tune with this kind of exoterics...

Everything is correct, nobody knows for sure. We can only put forward theories.
Ultimately, it is we ourselves who make a religion out of it, because we like to pigeonhole everything. We don't feel comfortable if we can't do this.
The best example is Shoami. Defining a Shoami style is like squaring the circle. They seem to have been extremely broad in terms of the realization of designs, but also manufacturing techniques. In the early period, they seem to have moved somewhere between the styles that we think can be relatively safely described as owari or kyo-sukashi. At least as far as sukashi tsuba are concerned. 
We know next to nothing about the shoami before 1600, except that they were doboshu and silversmiths in the service of the ashikaga bakufu. In comparison to the early goto, there were also no genealogies of shoami masters. Well, they were obviously not of noble origin.
And yet, from the early Edo period onwards, Shoami branches spread throughout Japan, developing their own characteristic styles.
The Shoami therefore seem to have had an importance in Kyoto even before this development, which "we" possibly underestimate - precisely because we don't know it.
But why should we, the "non-experts", not think about possible backgrounds or question things? That's what makes our hobby interesting. 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Great topic and for me quite timely.

 

Yesterday after the NBTHK meeting, I visited the excellent tsuba exhibition now on at the Osafune Sword Museum, and our sword sensei showed us around, commenting on almost everything. I took the chance to ask a raft of questions.

 

Later over lunch I showed him a tsuba and asked where he thought it was from. Owari? Kyoto? Akasaka? He turned it over and over in his hands and I saw his facial muscles twitching as he narrowed it down under his analytical mind...

 

Finally he handed it back to me and said with a smile, "Let's just take the Shoami escape route!" 「正阿弥」へ逃げるか？

On the box I had written a note in pencil: ‘Owari?’. Later I erased that and wrote ‘Shōami?’

 

'Shoami' is like a sponge to mop up the rest.

 

 

 

 

[Caracal]

I got this answer from Jesper, a colleague at NBTHK-EB.

 

Several schools use openwork, geometric and symmetrical designs. Normally one thinks of Kyo-Sukashi and Owari, but Shoami, Kaneyama and others use it as well. Kyo-Sukashi tsuba normally have a thin and fine design that is very symmetrical.

 

The school was very widespread and influenced other schools. A characteristic is that Seppa-dai and Ryo-hitsu ana tend to be quite slender. Owari tsuba is e.g. also symmetrical, but seem "heavier" in design. Higo tsuba, eg. The Nishigaki school also sometimes used geometric patterns.

 

The same goes for Shoami, Kaneyama and others, also Yagyo and Yamakichibei. We can therefore not only go by the design, but also have to look at the surface, e.g. Tekkotsu and Tochime, steel quality, etc. Eckhard Kremers mentions in his book Sukashi Tsuba that several tsuba attributed to Owari and (Ko-)Shoami may be Kyo-Sukashi. In other words, it is not simply…