Tsuba mei

[Marius]

Gents,

 

I am at loss about the second kanji. The first seems to be 毋, but the second? Is it 乃 ?

Apologies, I am hopeless when  it comes to mei... And many thanks for your help. It will be appreciated 

 

[SteveM]

I doubt the first one is 母. It would be an unusual character for a artist's name, and Wakayama lists no artist using this as the first character of their name. But I'm not sure what it is. It kind of looks like a sloppy 田 or 固, but I'm not entirely convinced its either of those. 

the second character looks like a calligraphic form of 水 (see below), but that doesn't get me any closer to figuring out the name. Neither 田水 nor 固水 work as art names.  

[Marius]

Steve,

 

Many thanks! I just couldn't crack that "水"

 

Please note that the "mei" is on the ura. So maybe it is an inscription, and not the artist's name. In which case 田水 would be either ta mizu or den sui. Water in a rice paddy... I admit, it is a strange one...