new tsuba

[lonely panet]

just got this one, it looks to be late edo, but im not sure if it belongs to a school or style. can anybody make some suggestions to help me?. regards Hamish

[docliss]

Dear Hamish

 

Your newly acquired tsuba is an iron, solid plate tsuba depicting, in low relief, maple leaves floating upon water. This is a populat theme in Japanese art, and may represent the Tatsuta river near Nara, described by the poet Narihira as being ‘Chinese deep-scarlet’ with the fallen leaves. The design also appears to include several water drops, depicted in gold ten-zōgan. I agree that this is probably C19 work, and is by either a Chōshū or a Bushū worker; my inclination is to favour the former.

 

John L.

[Mike]

Nice looking tsuba, indeed late Edo period, to it looks choshu school sa well. A pleasant theme of Maple leaves on the running river. I wonder what the tsuba size.

Mike

[Curran]

Silver beading and the sort of carving made me think later Umetada. But I would probably expect it to be signed in that case.

 

Generated lots of different opinions on this one.

[Ford Hallam]

I'm with Curran....later Umetada seems more appropriate to me too.

[Pete Klein]

This has the look of Kodai Jingo work. Look at the plate surface and overall shape. Interesting.

[jason_mazzy]

It is a beautiul piece no matter the school and probably a worthwhile find.

[Curran]

Found the tsuba I was looking for...

 

An Umetada I owned many years ago with some damage. Someone had pried out most of the silver centers to the clematis vine flowers.

What I took away from this tsuba and other Umetada school of the time was a high degree of detail but not much depth to the engraving. Also the use of silver or gold and silver dots to give a feel of activity to the engraving. Patina is usually more of a black than a brown.

 

Peter mentioned Kodai (later period) Jingo. I hadn't really thought of that. He considers more the plate surface and the shape. That would be a strike against my opinion of later Umetada, as they are usually relatively smooth surfaced.

 

Ford- thanks for agreeing with me, but they won't make me a shinsa judge in this lifetime...

[machinist]

The illusion of motion in the floating leaves on Hamish's tsuba is really well done.

[historian2]

Very nice tsuba......Erich

[lonely panet]

hello mike the sizes of the tsuba are as follows"

8cm across and 8.4cms top to bottom

and 0.4cm thick on the rim

this tsuba is dished in the middle.

 

Rgards Hamish