unusual hitsu ana

Shakado appears seamless to the tsuba, no hitsu ana under shakado?

Any info on school or period? I hope the pictures show the quality.

Size 60mm x 70

many thanks

pete

Shakudo??

My guess would be that it is a yamagane insert never intended to be a hitsu ana but inlaid to merely give the appearance or suggestion of a kogai hitsu ana. The contiguous surface carving suggests this or that the hitsu ana was filled and then the carving was done later than the tsuba was made. The two ana for a wrist strap suggest this is possibly an early Edo piece perhaps? But hey, what do I know? tsuba are usually a vast mystery to me. :?

Wow, I like it!

Looks like the plug was made as part of the Tsuba indeed. Very interesting. Would make sense as a client might be unsure whether it will be mounted with or without a kogai. Could you take closer pics?

Workmanship looks pretty nice but would love to see closer pics of the clouds and waves.

Ps: the two holes at the bottom are usually attributed to satsuma mounts.

More Photos

Hi All,

this is really a question that can be answered by Ford Hallam

or one of the other tsubako's.

Really nice tsuba though in mint condition making it even more

appealing

regards Alan

My guess for the maker would be Hirado Kunishige who was from Hizen late 18th early 19th century. He favoured this type of cloud / wave combination. You can look him up easily on the web for more detail.

Kindest regards

Michael

Shakudo??

My guess would be that it is a yamagane insert never intended to be a hitsu ana but inlaid to merely give the appearance or suggestion of a kogai hitsu ana. The contiguous surface carving suggests this or that the hitsu ana was filled and then the carving was done later than the tsuba was made.

I agree with your first suggestion - the darker colour of a recognizable shape offers a good tonal and compositional balance to the tsuba, once mounted and the kozuka is in place. The idea of a plug and carving being done later is certainly possible, but IMO unlikely because of the work involved for the relatively minor task of filling an ana.

I like that piece, though! The carving has a wonderful textural quality to it.

Interested in Michael's suggestion about Hirado Kunishige, I have always associated him with tsuba such as this one,

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/7514-Japanese-Sa ... 1180691391

And for when the link goes down:

Hi Geraint,

Please check my website's homepage: http://www.tsubaotaku.com/. My Hirado Kunishige tsuba looks great in photos and even better in hand and is completely done in brass with black lacquer. The tsuba that is the topic of this thread is also very nice but I am not sure it is the work of Hirado Kunishige as both generations works were mostly in brass or iron and many but not all had Nanban influences to the designs. Comparing the style of waves and clouds on my Hirado Kunishige tsuba and the waves and clouds on the shakudo tsuba might be helpful.

Dear David,

Thanks for the reference to your tsuba. May I say first of all that i Like very much botht the tsuba posted by Pete that started this thread and your own which I have already looked at with interest.

I believe that yours was already posted by Curran some while ago. Am I correct in believing that the paper your tsuba has specifies Hirado but not Kunishige?

I was intrigued by the suggestion that Michael made about a connection between this tsuba and Kunishige as it did not seem to match what I had assumed. Well it seems that there is not a great deal of information available from the sources I have at my disposal. Aside from the papered example that I posted here is another of the type I have always associated with this artist.

I have been trawling through my references and find these:

The second page from the catalogue of the Monzino collection.

A search of the web reveals an alarming tendency for any brass tsuba to be labelled as Hirado and very little information apart from the suggestion that there are thought to be two generations working around 1716 - 36.

Bob Benson has a copper tsuba on his site, here, http://www.bushidojapaneseswords.com/sw ... subas.html scroll down a bit 'til you get to it. I'm not arguing that it isn't, just wondering why.

Examples that we can be fairly sure about are in brass and iron and include tsuba, fuchi kashira and kodzuka including one in the 100 Kozuka book, number 68 if memory serves.

What I glean so far is that we are looking for a Namban influence, seen in the seppa dai and/or in the imagery used as well as a tendency to use western stamped characters, usually near the rim.

Michael is right that he used waves and clouds but I am not sure that I can see a connection with Pete's original tsuba yet. By the way, is that first tsuba an iron ground?

Anyone got any light to throw on all this?

All the best.

Hi Geraint,

To answer your question my tsuba is papered by the NTHK to Hirado only. The attribution to Hirado Kunishige was made by the former owner Jim Gibert. He is on the NTHK shinsa panel but one man opinion does not make a shinsa result. I purchased the tsuba from Curran but he never posted it on his website. The basis of my agreement with Jim's attribution is a issue of the NBTHK Token Bijutsu magazine discussing Hirado Kunishige and providing many examples mostly in brass but a few in iron.

Hi Peter D.,

What is the tsuba made of? The color looks a bit off for iron and some reason I was thinking a light colored shakudo.

Thank you David, I shall immediately go through all the copies of the NBTHK journal I have, (my wife also says, "Thank you very much", but in a slightly different tone.)

When I first saw the tsuba that Peter posted I assumed it was shibuichi or another soft metal but I am not sure from the images.

All the best.

Hi Geraint,

Shibuichi would make sense but really not sure. I think the pug is clearly shakudo. When I get home I will update this post with the NBTHK magazine issue information discussing the works of both generation of Hirado Kunishige artists that work during the middle Edo Period.

Hi guys, my tsuba is indeed shibuichi.

Hitsu ana is shakudo

Hope this helps

Many thanks for all your efforts

Peter

Hi gentleman,

I have owned at least 6 hirado tsuba over the years (including one of the ones pictured above) some signed others not - they vary from the massive brass "door knocker" type to some very delicately carved signed examples. Also signed fuchi kashira and kozuka. There is a huge variation in this schools work and possibly three generations. Plus their work was much copied - for example the one kindly shown by David is very similar to ones also made by Norisuke.

I suggest the tsuba was possibly made in the hirado style either by one of the kunishige generations or a school worker or even a copyist inspired by their style. Not sure we can get any closer.

Just wanted to add that I do not confess to having any great knowledge on this school - just floating an idea that others can shoot down or expand on.

Kindest regards

Michael

I like the tsuba in question much more than the Hirado examples. The carving is subdued and fine. The little gold embellishments add character. The pseudo-hitsuana is really neat. John

Hi John.

I tend to agree with you about your choice.

David. Having trawled through my NBTHK I find that, of course, the article you mentioned is in one of the issues that I am missing. I would be very grateful for a scan if you can find it easily.

Michael, thanks for the info, any chance that you have photos of the tsuba you have owned, would love to see them. It would be nice to collate as much information about the school as we can and it seems that we are onto a start

Many thanks to all.

Hi Geraint,

Forgot to update my post yesterday. I have the issue out as I was working on the write up for the new tsuba on my website. While we are discussing subjective opinions about art I think my tsuba is the best.

Hi David.

I am sure that John meant the tsuba in my post and not yours which is a cracker.

I was certainly contrasting the ones I had shown with the original for this thread.

Hi Geraint,

No problem. I was just trying to make a joke. The issue of the Token-bijutsu discussing Hirado Kunishige signed works and providing eight examples five of which are tsuba, one kozuka, and two sets of fuchi-gashira is No. 647, December 2010. The analysis of each piece is provided by Fukushi Shigeo. All of the examples are in brass with the exception of the last fuchi-gashira set which is done in shakudo. Each example is very high quality at the level of my example on my homepage. Please PM me your email address and I can scan and email you the pages of the article if you don't have that issue.

Thank you David, pm sent.

All the best