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Omori Teruhide Tsuba?


alexo

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Hi all,

 

this is my first post on Nihonto message board.

 

I work with mokume gane as a jeweler and have enjoyed a superficial study of Japanese metals over the last few years for some bespoke work for clients so when I found this piece framed in a thrift store I was fairly surprised!

 

I have done a few hrs of research on this piece comparing it to gimei and pieces by teruhide on various websites & forums and i am starting to have a faint glimmer of hope that this is the real deal and not Gimei as the flow and fluidity of the waves and detail is just so perfect to my un-trained eyes!

 

any opinions or thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

there were 2 tsuba in the case and I can post pictures of the other as well but is of very poor workmanship in my humble opinion. almost as if some one tried to copy this tsuba maybe an apprentice?

 

thanks

alex

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In genuine mei the 4th kanji doesn't have that little upturn hook. As this one is written it's correct in terms of the actual kanji but Teruhide 'wrote' his simply sweeping down.

 

Lucky find in any case.

 

thanks for all the feed back! so would this of been a students work as the signature is off slightly?

 

Alex.

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Ford,

Interested in your take on it in terms of quality. Obviously you suspect it gimei, but is it way off, or a decently made copy? I also think it's a lucky find, and a fine tsuba, Thought there were quite a lot of "dots" added..maybe more than needed. But that is just a quick impression. Still like it a lot, and was wondering about your take on it if it were mumei?

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Hi Brian, Alex

 

I think the workmanship is very good and does convince me that this isn't a simple copy. There's something about the confidence in terms of the carving and regularity of the little wave crests that suggest this maker was very experienced in carving these forms.

 

The thing is we actually know very little about studio practice and convention.

 

Big names and studios signed their works because it was advertising and the customers were paying for that big name label too, how else to impress your less refined mates?

 so I'm not happy ascribing big name status to unsigned work, and don't buy the 'it was  commission' story either. No other artists in the Edo period were that humble ;-)

 

Having said that it might be the case that a senior student, prior to being granted the right to use a school art name, was allowed to sell work done in the school style but unsigned. Atomei (a fake signature added later by nefarious scoundrels) would then be a strong possibility.

 

And this brings me neatly to one of my gripes about the state of tosogu study. We need to start looking at these works in the same way as other fields of art are studied. I made mention on another thread recently that to date there has been no thorough or comprehensive study of the varieties and styles of wave carving within the Omori school. Just that visual analysis alone would be a helpful start. I would suggest that within the scope of such a survey it might become possible to discern the individual traits of specific masters technique and perhaps even how those details were carried on by their students.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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