Obscure tsuba theme

[DirkO]

A recent addition to my collection has a very - to me - illusive theme. It's about 3 hermits (going on their clothes and general demeanor).
Left one has a toad, middle one a staff and the right one a turtle. Obviously the toad led me to Gamma Sen'nin and the turtle could indicate Kame Sen'nin. But it didn't really match.
As with most of these kind of themes they hail back to Chinese mythology. I noticed the crutch was actually burnished or inlaid in a slightly different metal than the iron that makes up the plate. The fact that the artist put so much effort in that crutch made me think it was done to define the figure's identity. Gamma Sen'nin seemed the logical path to go down and I ended up with Taoism and the 8 immortals of which I think 3 are portrayed here:

Liu Haichan - basically the predecessor of Gama Sen'nin - where the toad represents good fortune (among others)


Li Tieguai - ill-tempered but benevolent to the poor and sick, walks using a iron crutch and associated with medicine and healing


Zhang Guolao - symbol of longevity


Now I could be totally wrong on this - especially Zhang Guolao I've been back and forth about. Any help/comments would be appreciated!

[Bugyotsuji]

Nothing to add really. Nice tsuba. It seems that you have the idea right, but I am not sure why these three sages should be gathering together here.

(Gama Sen-nin's toad often has only three legs, but that is not really clear here.)

[SteveM]

Possible to see a shot of the whole tsuba to see how the sages are arranged?

 

Gama Sennin and Tekkai Sennin are a natural pair, so those two feel like a given. I'd like to see the third figure in his entirety. 

Zhuong Guolao (Chō ka rō) wouldn't have been my guess, but I'm at the outer limits of my knowledge, so maybe he's a possibility. 

[DirkO]

Basically the seppa could be a make shift cauldron 

 

[Spartancrest]

Could the design be based on the "Three vinegar tasters" with the three [Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi] being replaced by three Japanese representatives rather than Chinese/Indian? Perhaps it is poking fun at the normal convention?

  

[SteveM]

I searched around for various images, and I found a similar tsuba with three sages. The screen grab comes from a scam auction site, which steals data from Yahoo Auctions. I tried to find the original listing, but I can't. Anyway, it apparently has Hozon attribution, and the text from the Hozon certificate describes the design on this tsuba as "Gathering of Sages" (群仙の図), which, if you then plug the Japanese phrase back into a search engine you can find a number of similarly themed scrolls and screens Some with three sages, some with many more. Anyway, just another scrap of info. (It also attributes the tsuba to "Shōami").

 

[Bugyotsuji]

群がる muragaru, get together.

 

I guess one sage would be OK, but two of anything is not generally considered a lucky number in Japan (divisive, set up for strife, except for marriage where two become one), so three could be ideal.

 

(Four is also avoided, and five would surely be too much work for most artisans!)

[DirkO]

First of all - thank you all for the valuable input - much appreciated!
I don't think it's a random gathering of sages/hermits. Steve's tsuba shows the exact same 3 figures. We see the toad, the staff/crutch and the hyotan which is (amongst others) also associated to Zhang Guolao - so they seem to be a logical and recurring theme. On that tsuba I can also the same plants (bamboo, ume) as on mine.
Piers suggested that it might be 松竹梅 ‘shō chiku bai’, the triple (pine, ume, bamboo) because at the back of mine there's a pine tree. Chances are that Shoami will have a similar theme. So it's very much an auspicious theme of good fortune, longevity,...

[Jake6500]

On 5/23/2024 at 8:28 PM, DirkO said:

Basically the seppa could be a make shift cauldron 

 

 

Hi forum members,

 

I just thought I'd share this for you all, was browsing Ebay today just wasting time, looking at Tsuba (as you do) when I noticed this newly listed item that resembles the theme (Daoist Immortals) and artistic style of Dirk's Tsuba which kicked off this thread. Thought I'd share in case anyone is interested, think it might be a great addition to someone else's collection. 

 

I believe one of the immortals in this one is Liu Haichan (Gama Sennin) again...

 

https://www.ebay.com...2:g:4XkAAOSwNG9mbZgk

[BIG]

Think design depicts Buddhas footprints in stones..

 

 

[Jake6500]

On 6/16/2024 at 6:23 PM, BIG said:

Think design depicts Buddhas footprints in stones..

 

 

Hi Peter,

 

Did you mean the part of the Tsuba at the bottom, underneath our immortals and their cauldron?

 

I hadn't heard of this theme before in Japanese culture but after doing a bit of research I was surprised to find out that this is a thing in a number of shrines around Japan. I had done some research about Buddhism (particularly in Kamakura Period literature) as part of my academic studies but this particular cultural iconography completely escaped me!

[BIG]

Hi Jake,

 

https://en.wikipedia...iki/Buddha_footprint