TSUBA IDENTIFICATION Gold Inscription Masanobu and Kao seal

[yogoro]

Hi !

 

This nice tsuba is signed as MASANOBU and has his gold seal ?

But which Masanobu ?

Masanobu is most popular artist name.

[yogoro]

Tsuba Ginkgo motiv

[yogoro]

back side

[Rich T]

have answered your own question Yogoro. There are many artists listed as Masanobu in Haynes. I can see no matching Kao.

 

Which one indeed ?

 

Cheers

 

Rich

[Bungo]

somehow the way the mei is chiseled looks sort of " stiff "............ possibility of later add-on ?

 

milt the ronin

[Ludolf Richter]

Hi,I couldn't find this Kao in my books (Joly,Kinko Meikan,Baur Coll.,...).I found a note about Nr.264 (in red on the Tsuba) of the Fahrenhorst Collection with both Mei and Kao in gold.This Tsuba (motif:different leafs) was sold in 1968 at Lempertz/Cologne/Auction Nr.500.I do have no pic.Ludolf

[Markus]

I have to agree with milt, looks like a later add-on or "attribution"

to Masanobu of the Bushû-Itô-branch. He is listed in "Sôken-kishô"

(装剣奇賞, publ. 1781) as signing with kaô. Probably this kaô was

made just to look like a kaô.

See also Tôken-bijutsu 12-2006 (599), page 20.

BTW: Regarding the attribution, motif respectively workmanship

could match.

[Ludolf Richter]

I have some doubt about an attribution.Yogoro,are the 2 characters and the Kao carved and filled with golden/yellow colour or are they only painted?Ludolf

[Markus]

I just meant a later "well-meant" and/or layman attribution, therefore I put it into quotation marks.

[Ludolf Richter]

An attribution to a third class tsubako makes no sense,esp.without his family name (Shoami/Ito/Inoue/Haruta/Kaneko/Ki/Okabe/Okamoto and others with these Masanobu Kanji),when there are several artists with that very name.There are no examples in the literature,where someone inserted a name on an unsigned Tsuba other than for faking purposes!Different from that question are the Goto classifications,when a later Goto master made a statement on a Tsuba with his name,that this Tsuba was made by a specific earlier Goto master.Ludolf