New Year. New Forum. New Tsuba.

[Antti]

Greetings gents.

Let me be the first to introduce a new tsuba to this new forum.

I have applied a doctrine of only buying every five-six months or so, to get a chance to buy something nice with my small budget. This is also my first unpapered tsuba.

Size: around 83mm x 78mm

Material: Brass with inlays of gold, silver and the reflections made of shibuichi(?). The rim and the small trees made of shakudo.

Theme: Moon reflections on rice fields - could be 8 fold paths of Buddha? Rope design fukurin.

I found some other art with the theme as well. You are probably also familiar with the famous Nishigaki tsuba with the same theme. Markus has a nice blog entry here:
http://markussesko.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... ackground/

As I said, the tsuba is unpapered. However I have a pretty good guess who made it. I would really like to hear your impressions and attributions. We can, I am sure, all agree that it is from Higo. But from whom?

 

 

[Stephen]

Great first Tsuba for new forum. Ill pass on guessing

[Brian]

Really is an unusual tsuba. I am lost when trying to attribute it. Hopefully some of the Kinko guys will have an idea.

Nicely done though, with some interesting use of mixed metals.

 

Brian

[Pete Klein]

Higo, Nishigaki Kanshiro, third generation.

[Gunome]

Hello,

 

It remind me a Higo kinko tsuba I saw 2 years ago

[Brian]

When Pete comments on Higo or Kinko...I usually go with his call

 

Brian

[Pete Klein]

Aw, shucks Brian... thankee(!), but trust me I can be wrong and am quite often.  I just have a feeling for this one. It's really quite nice.  Note the fukurin quality.

[Brian]

Pete,

Never said you are never wrong. Just that you have far more knowledge on these than me, and I rather defer to people who at least have educated opinions rather than my own uneducated ones

Yes, that fukurin is nicely done. Debates around shinsa aside, this one would be an interesting submission.

 

Brian

[jlawson]

Nice Tsuba. 

[John A Stuart]

Man that is so cool how you can bring up one pic and click on it to advance to the next and so forth. So good for continuity of thought. .....and I think this is a very good tsuba, colour, theme, workmanship, just one to keep. John

[Antti]

Thank you gentlemen for your comments.

 

Mr. Kleins attribution makes perfect sense, however, I have a reason to believe the tsuba was made a Kumamoto artist Tohi Kohrin, whose work had influence from Nishigaki and Hayashi, and probably studied under one or both. You cant this guy from the Haynes Index, but here are some published tsuba by him provided to me by another collector. Only around 20 of his works are known, with 7 of them being in the Kumamoto Museum.

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

[Gunome]

Hello

 

Please find the pics of the tsuba I was refering to in my reply.

It looks like the one you post and the workmanship is close: shape, fukurin, hitsu ana, ...

It was told to me it is an Higo, but maybe  it has been made by the Kumamoto artist Tohi Kohrin you spoke about ?!

[Antti]

Sebastien, nice tsuba, I like it a lot. The fukurin is very similar. Kohrin often made the fukurin with different rope designs. The grass theme corresponds with many of the published ones. However I am not skilled enough to say anything about the attribution.

 

Some Kohrin work have received Tokobetsu Hozon papers so perhaps we should submit these to shinsa...

 

One more by him. The center of the piece is raised the same way than in your piece:

[Gunome]

Unfortunatly not my tsuba. It was too expensive for my budget

[Soshin]

Hi Antti,

 

Nice Higo tsuba.  The previous owner is a friend of mine.  I really like Higo tsuba and currently have two in my collection one which is papered by the NBTHK.  The other tsuba I will submit sometime this year to NBTHK.  Both are iron and not soft metal.  Not sure if your tsuba would get such a direct attribution to "Tohi Kohrin" at the NBTHK shinsa as your tsuba isn't signed or a published example so you should be prepared for the generic Higo attribution and as stated by Pete K. some type of Nishigaki attribution as well.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Brian
Removed unrelated content

[Pete Klein]

The pictures above are from the book, 'Hayashi and Kamiyoshi' by Ito Mitsuru, at the end of the book after Musashi.  For those that have the translation there is some brief information on Korin which I will attempt to summarize here.  The use of 'Tohi' apparently ties him into the 'Tsuboi' group of artists from Eastern Kumamoto, working in the 1800's.  It is therefore no surprise that his works are to be found in the Kumamoto museum (several of the tsuba in the book are in the Kumamoto Prefectural Art Museum).  He is considered a very fine tsuba shi and Ito sensei regards him highly in his writing.  As to shinsa, might not be a bad idea although getting an attribution directly to Korin might be a challenge. 

 

PS:  David's post came up as I was writing.  There is mention of Jingo and Tsuboi;  "...Tanabe Yasuhira studied under Shigenaga, the fifth generation Jingo master, and the fact that Jingo-style was in fashion at that time too would explain why this style was so frequently applied by Tsuboi craftsmen".

[Antti]

Thank you mr. Stiles and mr. Klein for you comments.

 

Ive attached some descriptions from the book:
 

Shinsa would just be a matter of interest. I adore the tsuba, no matter whoever really crafted it. To see a NBTHK attribution would be interesting, although what I would really love is to hear Ito Mitsuru's opinion. I am just concerned that it might receive Hozon to "Higo" paper that would be a complete waste of money.

 

It was my first kinko piece and opens a completely new world for me. It wont be the last. I just realised that out of the 5 tsuba that I own, 2 are Akasaka and the rest are non-affiliated when it comes to schools, and every one of the three combines different schools when it comes to style.

[Pete Klein]

"I am just concerned that it might receive Hozon to "Higo" paper that would be a complete waste of money".

 

Yup - that is always a possibility which one must be ready for in the 'World of Shinsa'...!  This I know from much experience...   LOL!