Tsuba hakogaki written by Satō Kanzan

[MauroP]

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gkfcfqc6gs14invoeg6hn/KanzanHakogaki.pdf?rlkey=5i89f80fkbbf60x67f1lloa2k&st=zfh4ao27&dl=0

 

I'm not sure where it would be more appropriate to post this — in the Translation Assistance section or in Tosogu (please, Brian, place it wherever you find most suitable).

 

I’ve compiled a short collection of transcriptions (kanji + romanization) of some tsuba hakogaki from Satō Kanzan. 

Although the examples I’m presenting are among the best-documented ones I could find online, I’m far from confident that the transcriptions provided are reliable. All the text shown in black should be reasonably accurate; the text in red is, at best, an educated guess; and I’ve marked with red stars the characters whose transcription I’ve no idea about. Some inconsistencies are evident and may perhaps be attributed to likely forgeries of the hakogaki.

 

For each hakogaki, I’ve included the website link from which I took the images, which I believe should serve as proper credit to the original owners. Of course I’m ready to remove any material upon request from the rightful holders. In any case, this is entirely non-profit, and I am not a professional in this field.

 

I would be very happy if forum members wished to contribute with comments, corrections, additions, or perhaps even further examples of hakogaki by sharing images from their own collections. I intend to release a final, corrected version here on the NMB forum within about a month or so.

 

Thank you for reading.

[GRC]

Thanks Mauro!

The compiled version is certainly going to be a valuable resource for everyone.

It may also serve as a window into how certain types of mumei tsuba were being classified by Sato Kanzan (and by association, the NBTHK) during that time period. It could be a useful benchmark to see how similar tsuba are being papered today and note the shifts in attributions in recent times.

 

Not to mention, seeing some great tsuba examples along the way 

[Jake6500]

Hey Mauro, 

 

Thanks for compiling these. I recently purchased a tsuba that appears to also have a hakogaki by Kanzan. You may recall seeing my thread about it a couple months ago...

Figure I would re-post it all here and you can assess whether it is a close enough match to add to your compilation!

 

 

Translation:

鐔 - Tsuba

七宝紋所之図 – Shippo, mondokoro no zu (figure of family crests)

 

朧銀磨地 – Oborogin, migakiji

七宝紋散 – Shippo mon chirashi

金覆輪 珍品也 – Kin fukurin, rare item

無銘 平田彦四郎 – Mumei, Hirata Hikoshiro (attribution)

昭和壬子年秋吉日 – Showa Mizunoe-Ne year (1972), autumn, a lucky day

寒山誌 – Kanzan wrote.

 

Edited October 21 by Jake6500

[kissakai]

A lot of works has gone into this document - many thanks. A valuable reference

[MauroP]

2 hours ago, Jake6500 said:

Figure I would re-post it all here and you can assess whether it is a close enough match to add to your compilation!

Dear Jake, I would be pleased to include your tsuba/hakogaki. I had to discard many other examples I found since they lack the image of the relative tsuba or one of the side of hakogaki (or because the images were so distorted to make impossible their correct representation even after a thorougly Photoshop processing). Using a flatbed scanner should be the easier way to get suitable images.

[Jake6500]

8 hours ago, MauroP said:

Dear Jake, I would be pleased to include your tsuba/hakogaki. I had to discard many other examples I found since they lack the image of the relative tsuba or one of the side of hakogaki (or because the images were so distorted to make impossible their correct representation even after a thorougly Photoshop processing). Using a flatbed scanner should be the easier way to get suitable images.

I'll see if I can find an opportunity to do a scan rather than a photograph some time in the near future and will upload the result here for you!

 

Thanks again for the great resource!

[Curran]

Wow. That is a lot of work.

Thank you @MauroP

 

Two or three old friends are listed in there.

Good to see them again.

 

[Bugyotsuji]

“Translation:

鐔 - Tsuba

七宝紋所之図 – Shippo, mondokoro no zu (figure of family crests)“

 

Jake, this part of the translation must be from a different part of the box, not shown in your photograph above. On top of the lid?

[MauroP]

Dear NMB members,

first of all, thank you for your interest in this project. All the missing or unclear writings have been brilliantly resolved by Steve M, to whom I extend my warmest thanks for his kindness and expertise. I would also like to thank Jean (AKA Rokujuro), Manuel (AKA C0D) and Matt (AKA M Ubertini) for the interesting correspondence on the topic.
 
I have just released the 2nd draft of  "Tsuba hakogaki written by Satō Kanzan". The file is available for download from the same link (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gkfcfqc6gs14invoeg6hn/KanzanHakogaki.pdf?rlkey=5i89f80fkbbf60x67f1lloa2k&st=zfh4ao27&dl=0). Several new hakogaki have been added, so the file is now even larger. Since the focus is on the hakogaki rather than on the tsuba, I decided to include hakogaki that are highly suspicious forgeries, as well as others that clearly refer to tsuba different from those stored in their respective kiribako (sadly it seems quite common for tsuba to be randomly swapped from one box to another). Annotations have been added at the end of the document to point out inconsistencies and to provide rough translations of Japanese expressions beyond simple tsuba descriptions.

 

The new additions, of course, contain missing kanji and transcriptions that still need to be confirmed (which is why this remains a draft rather than the final release).

 

I look forward to receiving further feedback from all of you. Thank you.

[ROKUJURO]

Mauro,

thank you so much for your excellent work! Valuable research material!

[Deez77]

Thank you for your efforts. This is a great resource. Feel free to include this example from my collection (I noticed one of mine already listed), which members from this forum helped me to understand originally, if you see fit:

 

Let me know if you need better pictures of anything. 

 

Regards

 

Damon

[MauroP]

8 hours ago, Deez77 said:

Thank you for your efforts. This is a great resource. Feel free to include this example from my collection (I noticed one of mine already listed), which members from this forum helped me to understand originally, if you see fit:

Thank you, Damon. I had forgotten about that post. I’ve already updated the file with your hakogaki.