Fittings maker?

[Geraint]

Dear All,

 

I would appreciate your help with this one. Just bought a late tanto with a set of mounts carrying this signature. Well out of my field but just wondered if anyone had any information on this maker? The tanto is in aikuchi mounts, I will try to post some reasonable pictures of the whole thing if I can.

 

Thanks in advance.

[John A Stuart]

This is signed Ikkin 一琴 One of two artists of the Funada family. Both studied with Goto Ichijo. It is said the son's work is more common Haynes H 01865.0 John

[Geraint]

Thank you John, that is a great help. Of course I was looking for Kazukin.........sword collectors, huh?

 

Many thanks.

[Ford Hallam]

The kao looks to have the general form and strokes of the one used by the first master, the father.

 

Funada Ikkin (TB N48_1991).pdf

[Geraint]

Thank you Ford, I will have to try to get some decent photographs of the koshirae to post. The bashin has a design of flowing waves with silver spray inlay, the aikuchi fuchi/koiguchi are suaka carved with the same flowing waves and silver spray. Menuki are very deep suaka squid and what I think is a tai fish.

 

I will have a play tomorrow with camera and scanner.

 

Many thanks.

[Brian]

Ford,

Wow..nice write up on Ikkin. What book does this come from? Might be worthwhile to add it to the articles section.

 

Brian

[Geraint]

Promised I'd try and add some images so here goes. The bashin has a total length of 110mms and the koshirae overall is 340.

Enjoy.

[John A Stuart]

Very likable. The copper fittings are signed Ikkin as well? John

[Geraint]

Hi John, thank you for your kind words. The copper fuchi and koiguchi are signed in the same way, no discernible signature on any of the other mounts.

Cheers

[docliss]

Brian, in reply to your query re the origin of Ford’s post on Funada Ikkin, it is:

 

Token Bijutsu (English Edition), 1991 No 48, pp. 25-29

 

John L

[Curran]

It is with hesitation here that I speak up, but no one else has. I am not sure if Ford is being polite, so guess it falls to me.

 

The signature does not look correct for shodai or nidai.

There are too many variations for me to consider it within possibility. I am not skilled enough with a Picture editor to visually highlight it, but there are multiple missing

direction strikes from the examples given in the .pdf Ford provided and from a papered example here: http://www.seiyudo.com/TU-080812.htm. I have not opened Wakayama to see if there is

a similar variation.

 

I would be interested in seeing the other signatures. Reason being:

Being non Japanese, I tend to error strictly on the side of caution with signatures. Over the last decade, I've had 100% accuracy in anything signed that I submitted to NBTHK or NTHK has passed. That is [i]disconcerting[/i], because not being Japanese... I'd expect to have been wrong a few times. The conclusion is that I am following the books too much, and I think the NBTHK has been doing so recently too, at least at the Hozon level.

 

The well known joke from Yoshindo Yoshihara was that as he carved a mei one day, he hit it wrong and cursed under his breath. He looked up at his visitors watching him and said, "In a hundred years, this is Gimei". I've recently seen a Hamano Shozui fuchi-kashira that I feel is exactly this. I believe the workmanship is his, but the variation on the signature is enough that I think the NBTHK would deny it for papers.

 

Curran

[Ford Hallam]

It is with hesitation here that I speak up, but no one else has. I am not sure if Ford is being polite, so guess it falls to me.

 

It has been known to happen

 

There's no question that Geraint's example is not particularly close to the examples in the NBTHK article but as I've mentioned here before, we simply don't have enough samples from all periods of most artists working lives to discount a variant like this on the basis of it not being hitherto recorded.

[Geraint]

Dear Curran.

 

Have no hesitation in your analysis, as you will have realised tosogu are not my field. For what it is worth I will attach an image of the very similar mei on the fuchi. I am sorry that my photography/scanning is not as good as I might wish. If nothing else the presence of the mei has sent me off on a research path that I would otherwise not have taken, one of the joys of this hobby, and I have spent some very pleasant hours looking at late kinko work. It is unlikely that I will ever submit this koshirae for shinsa but if I do I will be sure to let you know the outcome.

 

Ford, many thanks for the fascinating article.

 

All the best.