Need help learning about tsuba

[tiarnol]

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying and learning about some of their tsuba. All of these swords and tsuba are from our university museum. I have two tsuba and i have no idea where to start on figuring out what their designs represent or would have meant to the wielder of the sword it used to be attached to. One of them is depicting samurai on horseback and the other has a flower (not sure which kind) and a Fu dog(?not sure if i'm right). I'm also not sure how to find out about the time period they came from or what material they're made of. I would appreciate any help or suggestions i can get! Thank you so much!

~Tiffany

[Stephen]

Tiff

 

IMHO both tsuba are worth more than all the swords you have, ill let the experts tell you about them, the first is Soten style and could use a light cleaning, qtip or light brush work with some oil. Both look to be iron with gold inlay. Two really nice tsuba.

[Ludolf Richter]

Look at my statements in the translation-help-section.Ludolf

[Curran]

Tiffany-

 

You came to the right place. Post and ask about specific items (swords, fittings, etc.) and people should give you some very serious answers once this thread catches fire.

Have a little patience with us at first. Too many people come here asking questions just so they can sell the items on ebay or elsewhere.

 

The Soten tsuba looks nice, but is very much in need of a restorative cleaning before it deteriorates further.

[Marius]

The Soten tsuba looks nice, but is very much in need of a restorative cleaning before it deteriorates further.

 

I agree with Curran. Unfortunately none of these tsuba is a masterpiece

 

The Soten-style tsuba lacks detail, the soft metal inlays are quite messy. Signature is messy, too.

 

The tsuba with the relief inlays of a shishi and a peony is in bad shape. I can't see any patina, only rust and dimples. The inlay work is mediocre and nothing special. Still, it is a tsuba wworth preserving.

 

I must stress here that that both tsuba are GENUINE and worth preserving. Rust MUST be stopped, please read the following posts before you get your hands on the tsuba. It is easy to irreparably damage a tsuba:

 

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8087

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7868

 

DO NOT proceed without having read them, lest the kami of the tsuba will haunt you at night

[Curran]

Small steps ... small steps .....

Please remember she is an anthropology student in Midwest, probably Chicago area. Not a curator in Japan. As much as we would like to see it restored, I doubt they have anyone 'in house' who knows what they are doing- and would probably hesitate to pay to have it done by someone external- even if someone of skill offered to do it free to help the museum.

 

As Ludolph has done in the Translation section, we would probably do best to just help her ID items and answer any follow up questions she has.

[Marius]

I have two tsuba and i have no idea where to start on figuring out what their designs represent or would have meant to the wielder of the sword it used to be attached to. One of them is depicting samurai on horseback and the other has a flower (not sure which kind) and a Fu dog(?not sure if i'm right). I'm also not sure how to find out about the time period they came from or what material they're made of. I would appreciate any help or suggestions i can get!

 

You are right about the Fu (it is a shishi or kara-jishi, a Chinese guardian lion). The flower is a peony. The inlays are made of: shakudo (black colour), an alloy of copper and gold, brass (gold colour), and suaka = copper (red-brownish colour). The base is iron in both tsuba. The motif of the Soten tsuba is hard to tell. I see a samurai commander holding a fan (gunpai), a mounted samurai with a bow (yumi) and a standard bearer. What story this relates to, I cannot say.

 

The meaning of the shishi is buddhist - it is a beast of Monju Bosatsu (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/monju.shtml), while the peony symbolizes wealth and honour. What the Samurai scene means depends on the story behind it.

[jason_mazzy]

Very beautiful. Nice Tsuba.

[outlier48]

I find the "shishi and peony" tsuba quite impressive. However, maybe because of the condition of the "soten" tsuba (rust, lack of detail) or the missing 製 kanji we would normally find in the mei of such a piece, I do not find it a particularly good example of a soten tsuba and am wondering about its authenticity. Anyone else feel this way, or am I really off track here?

 

Charlie Brashear

 

edit: spelling

[ububob]

Mariusz,

Very informatiove website on Japanese Buddhist statuary. Thanks for that.

[Soshin]

Mariusz,

Very informatiove website on Japanese Buddhist statuary. Thanks for that.

I would agree I have used this website before it is very informative about Japanese Buddhism. I have used it to identify Buddhist designs and motifs in my tosogu. As well as identity details about some of my other Japanese art outside scope of this forum. To discuss the topic at hand I really like the second tsuba with the shi-shi and the peony. What school would it likely fall in to? I was thinking Nara but I could be wrong. As for the Soten tsuba (i.e. first tsuba) this school went into near mass production during the late Edo. The early tsuba of the Soten were masterpieces.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[tiarnol]

Thank you to everyone that has replied to my questions! This is greatly helping me, as I take your replies and I try to find hard copy sources that backup that information. I have been doing more research and I have read your replies and it has left me with more questions. :?

When we are talking about the Soten tsuba (the samurai depicting one) what is being said is that it is of "soten" school style and that this style originated in the Momoyam to mid Edo period? The other tsuba with the shishi and peony are suggested to be from the Nara school and have the "Ko-Nara" style of the late Edo period? Or could these just be representations/replicas of the "soten" and "nara" style and be produced in a time period other than the ones mentioned above? (I'm getting a bit confused about all the different school and styles and time periods they all corresponded with...there are so many!)

I will definietly bring up the topic of preserving the tsuba to my museum director, as I do not want to see these beautiful pieces deteriorate any further either. I'm not sure what I can do, if anything (i'm not quite sure if he'd even let me clean them) or what anyone else could do (even a professional) b/c I am a student at SIUE and we don't have very many funds at the moment. But I will do what I can and if all else fails, I will just leave them alone. I would like to wear gloves when I handle them though (so as to not damage them any further), any suggetions as to what material the gloves should be made of (or does it even matter?

One last question....I was getting a bit confused on what these were likely made of. Iron seems to be the consensus, but then i keep getting patina and shakudo (black coloring) mixed up, are they the same thing?

Again, thank you all so much for your replies and suggestions! I will keep posting with new questions as they come and I will post some photos of my display when it is complete (which won't be until March b/c our projects have to be a year long...)

~Tiffany

[John A Stuart]

Hi Tiffany, All metals oxidize over time and it is by this patina that age can be determined if there has been no other influence. Generally, this can also help determine if the piece is legitimate, although some great artists were emulated (copied, faked) contemporaneously. Too, chemical or physical formulations were used to force patina on new pieces for purely aesthetic reasons. A great art in this beyond the metal-craft itself. I like your desire to preserve and reticence to restore these tsuba. As to confusion, welcome to my usual state of mind a lot of the time. It is a complicated and fulfilling pursuit. Cotton gloves are fine, I use them. John

[Soshin]

Thank you to everyone that has replied to my questions! This is greatly helping me, as I take your replies and I try to find hard copy sources that backup that information. I have been doing more research and I have read your replies and it has left me with more questions. :?

When we are talking about the Soten tsuba (the samurai depicting one) what is being said is that it is of "soten" school style and that this style originated in the Momoyam to mid Edo period? The other tsuba with the shishi and peony are suggested to be from the Nara school and have the "Ko-Nara" style of the late Edo period?

~Tiffany

 

Hi Tiffany,

 

One thing you need to keep in mind is that there was many different tsuba schools in medieval Japan (1185-1615) including the Kamakura, Nanboku-chō, Muromachi and Momoyama periods. As well as pre-modern Japan (1616-1867) Edo period. The Meiji period onward is considered modern Japan. I found it better to study the different schools of tsuba and other Japanese sword fittings by first studying the history of Japan. Once I had a historical context I was able to better learn them quickly. This was a long process of about seven years of work in my free time. I am fairly sure you don't have that much time unless you are working on a Ph.D.:D I quick rule to help you would be to remember that whenever you see a "Ko" beginning a name of a tsuba school it means before the Edo period. The Kanji for "Ko" (古) means old. So for example Ko-Nara is the Nara school of the Momoyama period. When someone says such a piece is done in some style it likely means the artist was trying to emulate a specific style or technique from some earlier time period. This is very common in all Japanese art not just Tsuba. I hope this helps. Here are some good books to start you off on your learning process with some wonderful photos. They are intended for a general educated audience.

1. Lethal Elegance The Art of Samurai Swordf Fittings by Joe Earle

2. Art of The Samurai Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1868 edited by Morihiro Ogawa

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles