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Minkoku/Shunmin Tsuba


JohnTo

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Minkoku/Shunmin Tsuba

Can anyone help with the maker and subject of this tsuba?

I bought this tsuba at a London auction nearly 20 years ago. Its signed Funakoshi Shunmin (with kao) and the artist was also listed as ‘Ikedo Minkoku, son of Someya Chomin and a pupil of Kono Haruaki’ with the dates 1833-ca. 1909. (other references give 1828-1816). The tsuba is iron (8.5 cm) with copper, silver and gold details. Whether or not the tsuba is an authentic piece by Funakoshi Shunmin, the carving of the figure’s robes in particular is of exceptional quality (in my opinion).

The main subject was described as ‘a disaffected priest cutting the mandorla of a Buddhist statue with a cleaver’ and it was this that attracted to me to the tsuba as I recognised this as being a representation of the famous tale of the Chinese Zen monk Tanka (Tan’hsia, 739 -834, or 824) who stopped overnight at Yerenji. As it was freezing, he took down one of the wooden carvings of Buddha, chopped it up and set fire to it keep him warm. Next morning, the head monk of the temple was a little upset, to say the least, and berated Tanka, who started to rake through the ashes saying he looking for the bones (or sairas) of the cremated Buddha. The head monk called him an idiot (or something like that), informing him that there would be no cremated bones, as it was just a piece of wood. To which Tanka replied, ‘Well, if it was just a piece of wood, hand me down another carving and I’ll burn that as well.’

I particularly like the demonic look in Tanka’s eyes and when I purchased the tsuba, it had been over cleaned and his face was bright silver, but has now tarnished, as has the copper chopping block. The silver? Edge to the cleaver has remained bright. The gold on the mandorla has been lightly applied (I think the technique is called kakihage). Obviously this tsuba was never intended to go on a sword was made purely as an object d’art and I would guess that it was made around 1900.

So onto the questions.

Ikedo Minkoku/Funakoshi Shunmin (or Shumin) seems to be well documented, but not very well in any references that I have. The Genealogy charts of Markus Sesko lists a Shumin as the second (possibly third or fourth) son of Shomin of the Unno Shomin school. The Boston museum (see Lethal Elegance, Joe Earle) has a tobacco pouch with metal work made by him and signed Ipposai Minkoku, but unfortunately this was one of the few examples in the book with no photo of the signature. The British Museum has a shibuichi inro case signed Funakoshi Shunmin saku, with differences in some of the kanji to my tsuba (different hand or just change with time?). There seems to be various netsuke, inro, tobacco pouches, silverware made by Minkoku/Shunmin (with various Romanisation spellings and maybe not all the same guy), but I can find no tsuba, fuchi, kashira, etc. Also, my tsuba is iron, yet he seems to have specialised in soft metals. I have never come across any other kodogu by him in auctions. The spellings of the names mentioned above are as written in the references that I found and I’m assuming that these are just differences in Romanisation rather than differences in actual artists, but I may be wrong. I appears to me that the artist trained as a kodogu maker, saw that the age of the sword was coming to an end and switched to making ornamentation for the ‘fashion’ market. He also seems to have alternated between signing Minkoku and Shunmin, but I’m not sure why. Any info on this artist or his sword fittings would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, John

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Welcome. I am no expert, but the quality does strike. I wonder if this was made for show and not mounting? I ask because of lack of seki-gane (the anna is punched however), and the way the carving extends into the seppa area.

 

Regards

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and the way the carving extends into the seppa area.

 

Hi Harry, I can't speak to whether this was not intended to be mounted, but the carving on the seppa dai isn't enough to draw that conclusion in this case. The design isn't proud of the surface and therefor wouldn't interfere with mounting. It's not unheard of for tsuba intended to be functional to have part of their design obscured when mounted.

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John’s interesting thread on a tsuba with the inscription FUNAKOSHI SHUNMIN with kao appears to confuse a number of artists of this period. Funakoshi Shunmin (H 08835.0), Ikeda Minkoku (of which there were three artists, H 05096.0, H 05097.0 and H 05098.0) and Ikeda Shūmin (H 08819.0) are all different artists, although they were contempories, in the late C19 and early C20, and all working in Tokyo.

 

I have been unable to find any references to the mei of John’s artist, but have my suspicions that this may not be a genuine work by him. Can anyone help here?

 

John L.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the replies, especially from John L. I'm assuming that the references that John gave are from Haynes, which unfortunately I don't have. There was a comment about the design overflowing into the seppa dai. There are also decorative punch marks on the reverse, indicating that the nakago ana has been modified to fit a balde more tightly. I often see this in 19th C tsuba that were made as works of art and never intended to go on swords, even though they may have copper inserts and punch marks around the nakago ana. I assume that these were put on to enhance the feeling that the object is in fact a tsuba and not just a decorative piece of metal.

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  • 7 years later...

More information on the (possible) maker of this tsuba was supplied by Marcos on his recent New Year Ox Tsuba post (Jan 2021) as follows .

 

Ikedo Minkoku was a great tsubakō, kinkō and ginkō formed in the Fine Arts University of Tōkyō where was taught by Unnō Shōmin, but after that he continued his formation with him at his atelier. The problem for Minkoku was the time where he lived, where tsuba orders were very few so, as many other artists, including Shōmin, he worked on incense pots, silver jars, tabakoire kagamibuta and so on. As Mr. Ōkawa told me, things were not easy as well for Minkoku student and Ōkawa san sensei, Ametani Yūmin, who mainly made rings, collars and obitori. Even Ōkawa san told me that, if you're not hired by a institution like Tōken Hakubutsukan or Bizen Hakubutsukan, is impossible to live as a tsubakō, so he also made jewellery till 50 years old. 

Congratulations about your tsuba. I think I saw time ago, in some auction a kagamibuta made by Minkoku and, regarding the piece, the price was so high, maybe because there is few works made and signed by him, so you're lucky. 

Marcos

I have a couple of updates myself, so I thought that I would add them to my original post.  The first concerns the design on the reverse of the tsuba, a pine tree.  The relevance of this has puzzled me for over 10 years, but I think I found it last year amongst some haiku written by my favourite poet, Kobayashi Issa (literally one cup of tea, 1763-1827).  The haiku is: ‘Hotoke mo narade uka-uka oi no matsu (Not yet Buddha, mindless old pine)’.  I believe that the artist is effectively reversing the question, or Zen koan, asked on the front.  The main design asks if a sacred carving of Buddha can be regarded as a piece of firewood.  The reverse is asking whether a live pine tree has attained the Buddhist state of ‘no-mind’ and whether its fate, after being chopped down, is to become a sacred carving, or end up just pieces of firewood.  If I’m right, I think that the design concept is brilliant, especially as the story of Tanka is my favourite Zen koan.

The second update concerns whether it is genuine or a modern fake.  It looks as if Sajid Javid  (UK Home Secretary 2018, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2019) may have posed as the artist’s model for Tanka!

Sajid.png

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Dear John, thank you for all the information your collected over the years, and thank you again for showing us this beautiful tsuba. It was my plan travel to Japan in October, but due coronavirus it was cancelled. Maybe I will travel between February and April, and it's my plan visit again Ōkawa san, so I can ask him about this tsuba. 

 

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The Wakayama entry form Shunmin (春民) says:

 

Surname of Funakoshi, who later adopted the name Shunmin (春珉). Extant works with the mei of Shunmin (春民). Born in May of Meiji 1 (1868). Died in Showa 15 (1940) at the age of 73. He had two apprentices; Shunkai (春海) and Shunshu (春秀). 

 

So according to Wakayama he is a post-Edo artist, who only used the name Shunmin, albeit with two slightly different variations on the second kanji (民, 珉), both of which are pronounced "min".  Beautiful tsuba. Makes me want to see more works from him. 

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