Bob M.

With a starting price of 3000 euros plus buyers fees plus shipping & insurance, customs clearance, import duty, even if there were no other bidders and the auction house would let you have the piece at the opening bid price, then approx. $5,000 cost.

A lot of these fittings are actually owned by the auctioneers and so there is little chance of getting any sort of bargain on them. The auction house is well aware of the return that they are expecting ( unlike the situation with standard consigned lots ).

Personally I have made it a rule that if I am contemplating bidding on any lot over £500 then I want to see it in hand - no matter how good or revealing the published pictures seem to be. It is far too easy for a photo to be manipulated these days.

So - I would expect to see that the piece ( at least ) matches or exceeds its image in real life.

Very sad but not unexpected news. My condolences to all his family and friends.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Guido on a couple of occasions, during visits to Japan but will always remember the underlying sparkle of his personality and his pleasure in word games.

RIP Guido.

Your race now fully run.

Hi Uwe,

Amazingly, the esteemed tosugu master, Mr Bob Haynes was one of the exhibition's Co Chairmen - over 61 years ago! The event being held in California.

I have given background ( as far as I know it ) in the 'A Series of Fittings' thread in this forum, item nos 306 and 307.

Any further information is always welcome....

Regards

Hi,

Item No. 194 in the 'A Series of fittings ' thread  ( pinned above ) will give a comparison.

Regards

Hi Grev.,

Just to be clear, it wasn't this Bob M. who sold you the pieces...

Regards

Just playing devil's advocate here -

Of the results arising from NBTHK shinsa what percentage could be regarded as wrong ?

Same question but in the views of Western collectors and dealers ?

Are these ( wrong attributions ) grievous enough to change the entire current system ?

How strong would the arguments need to be to overthrow the time and investment by numerous academics and dealers who have a vested interest in retaining the status quo ?

Perhaps an alternative society to give opinions with a more 'western and modernist' slant could be set up ? 

Take the responsibility away from the NBTHK to look at Tosogu as they are clearly not up to the job ?

Is part of the problem that genuine expertise in this field is disappearing at an alarming rate, thereby giving less able 'experts' more of a say than in older days?

Is there a danger of the opinion/attribution being more highly regarded than the piece itself ?  Even more so than today?

Interesting thread though, great to see opinions on this.

Regards

I understand that Sothebys now impose a minimum lot value of £5000 on Japanese Art.

Anything coming in at under that figure is sold through Olympia Auctions which was set up by an ex Sothebys associate.

Hi Dale,

I think that the gentleman collector that you refer to as being named adjacent to the back b/w view of the tiger is Donald Stoehr. There are a number of obituary notices for him, if the same person, but I have not seen anything that references a specific interest in Nihonto or fittings.

To the best of my knowledge, the tiger pair were split ( under contentious circumstances ) in the early 2000s.

It is quite likely that the original and still missing piece ended up with an east European or Russian collector after the Nagel auction. This was getting on for 20 years ago and so it could have changed hands multiple times since then.

Images of the Utsushi that Ford made have been freely available on the internet for many years also. Sites like pinterest have shown it for a long time, so it is no wonder the Chinese fakers have picked up on it.

Obviously, it was only after the views of the back of the tiger tsuba became known to us that it was possible to compare Ford's Utsushi with the original. The more complicated treatment of the point where the tiger sits was an interpretation of the available information from the front view ie. in that area, almost nothing. I remember having long telephone and Skype conversations with Ford about that area on the piece , and eventually deciding to go with the paws and exposed bamboo framing, all of which were very difficult to blend convincingly.

As I am sure you are well aware, there is more background information and commentary to see on the 'A series of fittings' thread - for those who are unaware or would like to revisit, the relevant Item Nos. are 306 and 307.

Best

Bob

Hi Jay,

Some nice fine detail in that...

Regards

Hi Colin,

I think that the older Hartman collection was by Roland Hartman ( d. 2010 ) brother of Alan, ( d. 2023 ).

Both brothers were art dealers who had collaborated in their early years before going their separate ways.

That auction was from 1976 which seems to indicate that he had a change of direction in his collecting.

I agree with you about the lotting, but when Bonhams get these sort of results....

Good / top quality always sells well especially if it has a good provenance.

The estimates were ' come get me ' , but the fact that every lot in the fittings section sold is encouraging in itself.

We will never know, but it would be interesting to see if any of these items were headed back to Japan. More probably purchased by Western millionaire collectors.

Hi Ian,

Thanks for your posting - I have never heard of this collector before.

It is interesting - I purchased the tsuba at auction about 12 years ago and it had obviously had a light clean after appearing in the Fahrenhorst catalogue and prior to my acquisition. The collection that I bought from was  Szechenyi Japanese Art.

The tsuba was still very dirty and a lot of detail was obscured and so I got Ford Hallam to give it some TLC, with the spectacular results seen on the thread.

What was the year of publication of the Fahrenhorst book ?

Again it would be interesting to try and establish a timeline for the piece.

Best Regards

Bob

Dear NMB members,

Time to drop a curtain on this thread at least for the time being - over two and a half years is quite a long time and more than 300 fittings being posted was in excess of my expectations when we started out. The number of views and replies have been most encouraging and I hope that there was something for everyone.

A big Thank You to all viewers and to those who have taken the time to contribute.

I am still active in the market and hope that in 6 - 12 months' time I will have a few more bits & pieces to post as an addendum.

My thanks to Brian for putting up with me and helping out with board related queries.

Many thanks are due to George Miller for his commentary and research both on and off the NMB - the postings would have been much the poorer without his input.

I must also mention that without the friendship and advice of Ford Hallam over many years, the collection would not be anything like the quality that it is today - Thank you, Ford.

We are researching as to whether the two parts of the thread can be merged and pinned, hopefully as a reference source ( or perhaps a dire warning ) for fittings collectors and enthusiasts.

With Best Regards

Bob Morrison

Ref. Item No. 315

Hi Luca,

You ask about repatination or restoration ; the piece just received a light clean by Ford Hallam after I had bought it.

The colour varies I think, according to lighting conditions. The 'browner' shades were probably generated by photographing under incandescent bulbs whereas the more silver grey version ( my pictures ) used either natural light or cold white . This enables more detail to be shown as a higher level of light can be used which ' cuts through ' the darkening effect of a close up lens.

The natural colour of the shibuichi used in the body of the kozuka is influenced by the silver content. This in turn means that the wide variation between the different shades does not show a right or wrong colour but merely one that reflects ( literally ) the light falling on the piece. 

Ref. Item No.  315

Many thanks to everyone for their comments and contributions on this - most illuminating.

I wonder if it would be possible to see copies of the relevant entries in the Milward and Monzino catalogues regarding this piece?

Until Ian Brooks kindly mentioned them, I had not thought about catalogues for these collections being extant. It would be great to have copies to add a bit of background documentation.

Item No.  315  Kozuka in shibuichi with silver, copper, gold and shakudo.

Depiction of a fox as a changeling, looking at its reflection as that of a beautiful girl, in a stream.  Haruaki School , signed Haruaki Hogen with kao.

Appraised as ' very fine work ' in the catalogue of the Naunton collection, ( as far as I can see, this description is unused in any other commentary throughout the catalogue of this extensive collection ), this is a sensationally well executed piece. Indeed it would be possible to enlarge the original image of this kozuka many times over and still be immensely impressed by the quality of the workmanship displayed.

I have attempted to take pictures at different angles in order to show the subtle variations of image depending on the viewing angle.

Provenance -

G.H.Naunton collection, published in the catalogue , no. 2181, plate LXVI.

Clement Milward collection

Carlo Monzino collection

Item No 314   Iron Tsuba with shibuichi, shakudo and gold  7.50 cm x 7.10 cm x 0.50 cm

Subject of Carp swimming through water weeds by Mitsuyoshi from Ichryu school ( Mito ).

This was a commission piece - specially made for a gentleman, Uruno-san.

A superb rendition of the subject made with the extra care and attention to detail reserved for a special piece.

Although it may not be regarded as the best fitting in the collection, it is my personal favourite. Indeed it was the very first item I purchased when starting out on the collecting journey - no doubt a contributing factor to my feelings. I have some ebay paperwork showing that I bought the Tsuba on the 12th Feb. 2002, which neatly shows when my fascination with the subject and artwork turned towards acquisition. 

Is that a blessing or a curse I wonder ?

Hi John,

Striking pair of menuki there - would it be possible to see rear views, please ?

Bob

Item No. 310   Tsuba in shibuichi with gold, silver, shakudo and shibuichi   6.68 cm x 6.42 cm x 0.41 cm

Subject of flowers and plants after rain signed ( carved by ) Ryumeishi Kazuhide ( Goto Ichijo school ) 19th cent.  Haynes H02984.0

Tanto or small Wakizashi sized tsuba, simply but wonderfully decorated with plants and flowers including poppies, chrysanthemums and valerian. 

Re item No. 309 - Iris Tsuba by Ford Hallam

In response to an ' off board ' enquiry,

Of all the Hallam fittings ( between 15 and 20 I think ) in my collection, I have only commissioned three.

The first was the Utsushi of Katsuhira's tiger , second was the Millet Tsuba and lastly the Iris. All other items were purchased as finished or works in progress.

Ford was constrained by the first commission to create a replica and not a completely new piece of art.

With the second, I wanted him to make his version and interpretation of millet ( not an Utsushi of one of Tomei's pieces ). This brief was restraining in itself , as shown in the Yugen film, but gave more scope for artistic freedom than the first.

For the third, my total involvement came down to nine letters - Iris Tsuba. The design, composition and crafting were all carried out ' behind closed doors ' as far as I was concerned. Indeed I only briefly saw it before it was sent to Japan for the NBSK competition where it did rather well.

It is difficult to know at times where to draw the line between suggesting and interference...

Item No. 309   Tsuba in shakudo with shibuichi and gold   7.75 cm x 6.96 cm x 0.36 cm

Subject of Irises by Ford Hallam.

Image of a ' ballerina of the mist ' with another bloom about to unfurl depicted on the rear.

This piece won top gold in the NBSK competition 10 years ago.

Irises are a particular favourite subject of mine and I have been very satisfied with the outcome of this commission.