Interesting piece

[raiden]

Sometimes collectors in the west sometimes miss certain artist or do not study enough and miss out on a treasure. Study does pay off when collecting and searching for that rare treasure. Anyone care to guess for fun who made this excellent tsuba? The rim is an excellent nawa mimi, tsuba done in shakudo.

[Pete Klein]

Yoshikatsu Tsuge?

 

[John A Stuart]

I can only think of someone from the Higo Kinko schools. John

[raiden]

High grade shakudo, obviously Higo in nature.Hosokawa mons well done, with very shibui feeling. No restraint on materials, by a maker who is close to the Daimyo or keirai. There is a maker known as Takatada Kobayashi, who worked for the Hosokawa family directly. There is i believe a Juyo Koshirae by this man that also has hosokawa mons. He worked during the Bakumatsu period, very fine and detailed workmanship, a true talented over looked nowadays artist that deserves some recognition.

[Soshin]

Hi Mike Y.,

 

Thanks for posting photos of this tsuba. I really like it. Was the overlooked artist associated with a specific school or did he work independently for the Hosokawa family in Higo during the late Edo Period?

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Pete Klein]

There is a maker known as Takatada Kobayashi, who worked for the Hosokawa family directly.

 

David -- I believe Mike already gave you your answer.

[Soshin]

Hi Pete K. and Mike Y.,

 

Being interdependent and working for the Hosokawa Daimyo directly I wonder who trained him. Someone can't gain that ability without great effort and much training. Even after such training with such skill what would stop him from being the head master of a established Higo school he originally trained in. Mike Y. said he was overlooked I did a Google search of the name and didn't find anything just this NMB topic. Just looking for additional information about the artist.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Lance]

Lovely tsuba, I'd guess the lack of information for artists like this is due to them working exclusively for a wealthy patron (Hosokawa Dainyo in this case) for their personal use and not to sell so the regular public/craftsmen community never saw much of it?

Regards,

Lance

[docliss]

There is a remarkable similarity between the two tsuba posted by Mike Y and Pete K and, apart from the fact that both artists were working in Higo in the second half of the C19, there appears to be nothing to link them. Can we be certain that Mike’s tsuba is, indeed, by Kobayashi Takatada and is not another by Tsuge Yoshikatsu?

 

John L.

[nagamaki - Franco]

There is a remarkable similarity between the two tsuba posted

 

There in all likelihood would have been master drawings for these tsuba patterns, which would make it quite possible to have closely repeated work had someone had the ability and skill. The question then would be who would have had access. If you look carefully at the following two patterns, I'd say it was safe to say 2 different hands.

 

 

[Brian]

I'm with John. Given the similarities and techniques..and things like the shape of the sukashi..lining of the ana and materials...then surely the simplest explanation becomes the obvious one. Unless of course the original one is either signed or has gone through shinsa?

 

Brian

[Ford Hallam]

Not that it helps much in regard to identification but the actual technique used in both cases to decorate the plate is actually resist etching and not carving.

 

We see the same technique being used in Higo pieces from the late 17th cent. already.

 

The pattern is painted directly onto the prepared plate, probably using urushi, and then etched in an acid. The resist (urushi) would then subsequently be ground off using a fine stone and charcoal to bring the raised pattern back to a fine finish.

 

Compared to carving such a dense and complex pattern etching is relatively quick and easy, for a skilled artisan

 

Lorenzo Amati recently did an utsushi of an old example and followed exactly the procedure I've described. On copper and shinchu examples it's common to see the recessed (etched) area darkened by the application of baked ki-urushi.