Established ideas that need to change - 2: Timeline of sukashi tsuba production

[Toryu2020]

A kodai koshirae with at least the tsuba left…

[Iekatsu]

Do you have more information about this piece?

[Toryu2020]

Its from an old book so Pre-war Japanese - if I understand the listing this is from the Shosoin.

 

-t

[Iekatsu]

Just bumped into an example. Tachi Koshirae, Nanboku-chō period, housed in Kasuga Taisha Shrine.



  

[GRC]

@Iekatsu Sadly, that example doesn't provide us with any reliable information as is...

 

We'd need to know when that particular sword was donated to the shrine, because these things were typically donated by samurai after a particular battle, so the sword would likely have been fitted with whatever the "fittings of the day" would have been when the samurai took the blade into battle.

 

I have no doubt the sword was made in the Nabokucho period (as stated in the description), but the fittings and the entire koshirae itself would have changed many times over through the years before it was donated at some point.

 

I would stake my claim here and now, that this sword was likely donated during the Azuchi-momoyama period... right when these guruma style openwork tsuba were in their prime production period.

[Iekatsu]

According to the shrine, the blade is Kamakura period, the Koshirae is Nanboku-chō period, and that the koshirae was likely made specifically for the donation. I presume it was donated at that time, but there is no mention of how/when it was donated. Stylistically it is not a Momoyama period Tachi Koshirae in my opinion, there are many extant examples that can be drawn from for comparison. There is another example donated to the same shrine (image below), that is quite similar stylistically, that was said to have been donated Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the same period. It is not a smoking gun, but I think worthy of discussion.