Museum images gone missing?

[Spartancrest]

I recently up-dated the Saint Louis Art Museum's collection of tsuba, but something has happened to the museum's on-line images. Half the images are now GONE. It seems incredible to me that a museum would minimise it's access to information particularly images in the public domain. I wonder if any members within the U.S. still have access to all the images [omote & ura]? Living on the other side of the planet I am wondering if some "firewall" has been erected to limit access to "outsiders" - or am I just paranoid? [Makes no difference to me as I have the entire collection on record - but why should I be the only person with access?]  Can other members check the site and see what they find?

https://www.slam.org/search/tsuba/

[Dan tsuba]

Hey Spartancrest,

I checked the site and they show 39 pages of tsuba.

[Spartancrest]

9 minutes ago, Dan tsuba said:

they show 39 pages of tsuba.

But how many images of each tsuba? Apart from a few with closeup signatures?

[Dan tsuba]

Only one image of each tsuba is shown.

[pin yin]

I think it has a good zoom but I can only see from above. some pieces are amazing

[Spartancrest]

Something odd going on here - now some are showing two images, while others have only one with a signature close-up   - https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/8667/ 

 

https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/8666/   

 

https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/8686/

 

Maybe it is a "Time share" thing 

[Dan tsuba]

I see, said the blind man!

I went to the site again.

You have to click on the image of the tsuba.

Then below the image will be two small pictures.

Click on those and you will see the omote and ura of the tsuba.

But not all tsuba will show those two images.

Sometimes the other picture will just show a close up of the mei.

And sometimes there will not be those two pictures below the tsuba.

They will only show that one picture of the tsuba.

[cluckdaddy76]

Dale, it seems to be a mixed bag.  Here is what I have found going through various examples. If the tsuba is mostly openwork, they do only show one side. Solid or mostly solid plates do have pics of both sides.  Signed tsuba can vary, solid plates seem to have both sides of the tsuba and if signed a third close up pic of the mei. Signed openwork pieces usually have a second close up pic of the mei but that is it. I have not looked at every single one yet but went to various pages to test the pattern I found, and it stays fairly consistent.

 

Jason

[Spartancrest]

Thanks Jason, I am just glad that I managed to grab all the now missing images. I have all the ura views of the sukashi ones, which is not a big deal as you would just see a mirror reverse image really, but sometimes the tagane-ato are on that side and the punch marks are often a "finger print" to identify specific pieces that may have been in other collections in the past. Forensic Tsubaology 

 

 

A screen shot of a question answered by AI :

  AI will have to guess again! I released a "Pictorial guide to the tsuba in the Saint Louis Art Museum" six days ago -

maybe "Skynet" hasn't caught up yet! [John Conner , where are you?] 

[Jesta]

6 hours ago, cluckdaddy76 said:

Dale, it seems to be a mixed bag.  Here is what I have found going through various examples. If the tsuba is mostly openwork, they do only show one side. Solid or mostly solid plates do have pics of both sides.  Signed tsuba can vary, solid plates seem to have both sides of the tsuba and if signed a third close up pic of the mei. Signed openwork pieces usually have a second close up pic of the mei but that is it. I have not looked at every single one yet but went to various pages to test the pattern I found, and it stays fairly consistent.

This is what I found too. My guess is that they have both sides where the two sides are sufficiently different to warrant a second picture. It may be a cost or time saving thing, but where there is a reverse side that is different there is a picture, where the pattern is very similar they don’t have one.