Arthur Church, Japanese sword guards

[Bugyotsuji]

The other day I was offered a book called Japanese Sword Guards, (some tsuba in the collection of Sir Arthur H Church). The book was published in Britain in 1914 and focussed on 272 Tsuba out of about 1300 in his collection, categorizing them by schools. This is not the original book, but a rather fancy bound-and-boxed first edition Japanese translation with the Japanese written below the original English titles and explanations, published in Showa 45, ie 1970.　Someone must have thought that this was worth doing? The pictures are all b&w, and the preface proudly states that they are of the finest quality... "the photographs by the Photophane Company of Brockley will arrest attention in all cases except where colour constitutes the important element of the decorative effect." The author says he started collecting in 1873 "when good specimens were many and eager collectors few".

 

Is this book well-known?

[Rich T]

Hi Piers, The book is ok, you should be able to pick it up on Yahoo Japan for about 50 - 100 US dollars. It is mostly late tsuba (read little pre Edo) and a bit ecliptic in it's layout. Yes, it is all B&W, the Japanese explanations are better then the simple English descriptions.

 

Don't spend too much on it is my advice.

 

Cheers

 

Rich

[Bugyotsuji]

Ah, so it is not unknown. Thanks for the feedback, Rich.

[Thierry BERNARD]

Ah, so it is not unknown.

 

No it's a well known book :D

 

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/bernard.thierry/details/1102.html

 

[Bugyotsuji]

To tell you the truth, Thierry, I was offered it, and so I bought it, and I've been flicking through it the last say or two. I wasn't really sure what I had bought though, as it was a spur-of-the-moment purchase.