Kinai tsuba

[John A Stuart]

Here is the tsuba found on Dave's Kanemoto nihonto. One of my favourite themes. John

[Bazza]

Oh, very nice. This is the dragon fish, is it not???

 

BaZZa.

[John A Stuart]

Hi Barry, yes it is well rendered here I think. John

[Gunome]

Hello,

 

I am very surprise by this tsuba.

Even if it is signed echizen ju kinai saku, and the mimi, Seppa Dai and the patina match Kinai's school, hitsu ana does not have border and does not have to Kogai ana. Moreover, it has brass/gold inlays.

Does it is an uncommon work of Kinai ?

 

Thanks

 

Sebastien

[Michael 101]

Very nice example of the School.

 

Hitsu ana were not always used by the school but I agree its a little less common not to see them. Gold aplication is far more common on the later 19th century work - although this example looks more 18th century and the inlay maybe Umetada influenced. The quality looks very good and I like the shakudo shim fitted which is a nice attention to detail and points to it being held in high regard by its orginal owner.

 

I have attached another example without hitsu.

 

Kind regards

 

Michael

[docliss]

Are we looking at the omote or the ura surface of this beautiful tsuba, I wonder. The kōban-shaped seppa-dai; the solid, round mimi; and the dark patination, reminiscent of Chōshū work, are all typical of the later, Takahashi family artists. But I would expect it to be signed ura-mei. I, personally, do not have any problem with the very discrete, gold ten-zōgan decoration.

 

I await further comments with interest. John L.

[Gunome]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your replies, which enlighted me on kinai's "not so common" works

 

Sebastien

[bridgeofdreams]

The 1998 Tusurwaka book "Echizen Kinai Tsuba" has more examples of motifs that you would not think are Kinai at first glance than those that we tend to immediately classify as Kinai.

 

Malcolm Cox has done quite a lot of work on these. His Kinai page is well worth a look:

 

http://www.users.on.net/~coxm/9.%20tsuba%20iii.html

 

His synopsis of the book is here:

 

http://www.users.on.net/~coxm/echizen%20kinai.htm

 

-Craig

[Michael 101]

Hi John (Docliss) its believed that only the earlier Kinai masters signed on the omote, although some later masters switched between so its not a set fast rule.

 

The example picture I loaded (ura view) is attributed to the last (7th) generation of the Takahashi family and was an exceptionally skilled carver.

 

Kind regards

 

Michael

[Curran]

Dave's Echizen Kinai is definitely different from most that we see.

I think we can agree there are many a dragon in the Echizen tsubas, but not sure if I've seen a Dragon Fish like that in Echizen before. Nice Shakudo shim too.

 

School mixes such as the slight Umetada feel to this one certainly do pop up in late Edo. One of the many tsuba I've been forced to sell off the past few years was a nice cloissone work thought by most to be unsigned Hirata. The multiple cloissone butterflies and two tones of gold clematis flowers were done on an iron basketweave background. Perhaps for this reason (the iron basketweave tsuba plate) the NBTHK decided to paper it to "Bushu" which seemed an odd call. The Bushu-Hirata was one of the odder cross works. The Umetada elements in this Kinai example work fine together, especially given that we see the dragon-fish in a fair number of later Umetada works.

 

John, thanks for posting it.

 

Curran

[ottou812]

Here's my common theme Echizen kinai tsuba.

[Dave J]

Thank you for the comments and info. Was looking for a bit more info than I had been able to gather and guide me in the right direction. The comments and info from the members is appreciated and helpful. I appreciate being able to participate and will be checking back on the board. THANK YOU, Dave J (THANK YOU JOHN for posting the pics!!!)

[docliss]

Is James’ illustration an example of what is described in the books as an ‘Iri Kinai’ mei, with the third and fourth strokes of the ‘nai’ kanji reversed? This is, I believe, a characteristic of the Takahashi godai and nanadai.

 

John L.

[ottou812]

I believe it is.