Babu Posted July 15, 2020 Report Posted July 15, 2020 Question if I may. I'm aware that there were some lacquer workers who migrated to being makers of sword fittings.The third Nara head Toshiharu started making sword fittings such as Tsuba and Kozuka. I had a sword arrive a few months ago with a nice nanako ground kozuka but sadly the decoration on it was devoid of most detail and was brown like rust. In hindsight I believe this was actually lacquer that was built up to create a shishi and flowers theme then it must have been gilt. This decoration was in such poor condition that some of the lacquer came off and eventually all was removed, it was all lacquer. I imagine it's unlikely that anyone would know the relief "carving" of a kozuka was lacquer unless they did a destruction test such as this. Does anyone know if this was quite a common composite material for the decoration on a kozuka? Quote
rkg Posted July 15, 2020 Report Posted July 15, 2020 I have a tsuba like that, where all the nunome, etc is lacquer work. I don't know if its a Kyou shouami piece that was "spiffed up" or what, but... Best,rkg (Richard George) 2 Quote
Babu Posted July 15, 2020 Author Report Posted July 15, 2020 Ah yes that's a tsuba that's been black lacquered. The kozuka had not been "painted" with lacquer the motif on the kozuka was built up in high relief as a couple of shi shi in flowers in brown lacquer then gilded. Make sense? Quote
rkg Posted July 15, 2020 Report Posted July 15, 2020 Adrian, I understood what you said. the tsuba a bit more than just black lacquered - the nunome is completely built up with lacquer (crosshatching,e tc) - not as ornate as you are talking about, but... Best, rkg Quote
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