Painted collection number comes in handy for provenance.

[Spartancrest]

I was doing some work on the Poncetton collection [1924] and noticed an Onin tsuba that twigged a memory back to the Hayashi Tadamasa collection of 1902. [yes I do live in the past! ]

I found the images and tried to do a visual comparison. Both collections only showed one side view and of course they were not the same view!  However the older Hayashi collection had a brief description which included its catalogue number from that time [1902]  - The Poncetton image had even less by way of descriptions except for a tiny number at the top of the nakago-ana no. 49  - - the same collection number as the Hayashi description. Bingo!! That allows me to push the provenance of the piece back beyond what the Poncetton collection knew.

 

The Poncetton collection cites H. Vever. as the previous owner and Henri Vever has an interesting Wikipedia article  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Vever   Which in part states "By the 1880s, Vever became one of the earliest Europeans to formally collect Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, purchasing extensively from dealers such as Hayashi Tadamasa."  He must also have collected tsuba, at least the one that was still in Hayashi's collection in 1902 (Tsuba are not mentioned in the article but other collectors of the same, such as Gonse & Migeon are listed) 

 

I guess the point is if you have any old collection numbers on your tsuba, please, please leave them in place - they may come in handy!

[Jake6500]

Just now, Spartancrest said:

I was doing some work on the Poncetton collection [1924] and noticed an Onin tsuba that twigged a memory back to the Hayashi Tadamasa collection of 1902. [yes I do live in the past! ]

I found the images and tried to do a visual comparison. Both collections only showed one side view and of course they were not the same view!  However the older Hayashi collection had a brief description which included its catalogue number from that time [1902]  - The Poncetton image had even less by way of descriptions except for a tiny number at the top of the nakago-ana no. 49  - - the same collection number as the Hayashi description. Bingo!! That allows me to push the provenance of the piece back beyond what the Poncetton collection knew.

 

The Poncetton collection cites H. Vever. as the previous owner and Henri Vever has an interesting Wikipedia article  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Vever   Which in part states "By the 1880s, Vever became one of the earliest Europeans to formally collect Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, purchasing extensively from dealers such as Hayashi Tadamasa."  He must also have collected tsuba, at least the one that was still in Hayashi's collection in 1902 (Tsuba are not mentioned in the article but other collectors of the same, such as Gonse & Migeon are listed) 

 

I guess the point is if you have any old collection numbers on your tsuba, please, please leave them in place - they may come in handy!

Those are some incredible investigative powers as usual Dale!

 

Collection and catalogue numbers are an important tool in tracing the provenance of antiques!

 

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Dale,

 

Sotheby's have a long and fascinating relationship with the Vever family of Jewellers:

 

https://www.sothebys.com/en/brands/vever

 

The Henri Vever Sales (Parts 1 & 2) of Tsuba etc took place in 1973.

 

I recall viewing the Sale of much of Henri Vever's extensive collection of prints and drawings in March 1974 at Sotheby's.

 

Two years later, in Dec 1976 Sotheby's published "Japanese Prints and Drawings from the Vever Collection" which was written by Jack Hillier.

 

The final part of the collection was dispersed at Sotheby's in October 1997.

 

 

 

 

[Jesta]

On 4/26/2025 at 11:46 AM, Spartancrest said:

 

I guess the point is if you have any old collection numbers on your tsuba, please, please leave them in place - they may come in handy!

 

I was just thinking about this, and wondering if it would be a good plan to get rid of them. I am not a fan of the stickers, but you raise an excellent point about provenance. I will keep them on… 

[Spartancrest]

59 minutes ago, Jesta said:

I will keep them on…

It does add to their history - I don't think most people would mark their collections anymore, but then we have the ability to photograph and take detailed digital records.

 

I just traced some more information from some old references, which can show how some information can get lost and now brought back together. These two images are two years apart and neither source had both sides published - goes to show that sometimes displaying the incorrect side can come in handy otherwise you would need to guess what the other side looked like. The Poncetton image has a paper tag attached to the nakago-ana & hitsu so it didn't have to have a number painted on - these little paper tags are a less intrusive way to catalogue a collection, pity we can't read the information on it. 

 

It would appear Poncetton didn't like stickers on his tsuba in all cases? fickle 

 

[Curran]

Nice bit of detective work there.

@Spartancrest   (Dale) Thank you for sharing this. Some very interesting unique tsuba, and a good point about seeing both sides of a tsuba.