I wasn't sure of the "right" place to post this, but since it has some of my pics and a point about that, here goes..
I recently acquired a tsuba that has me scratching my head. I succumbed to the siren's song of fleabay and bought
this piece (vendors pics here):
http://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/5.JPGhttp://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/4.JPGhttp://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/0.JPGhttp://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/1.JPGhttp://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/2.JPGhttp://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/3.JPGIts about 6.6cm across and the web is pretty thin - like ~.18cm thick
It was advertised as a pre-edo soft metal piece - from the pics I could believe it...
When I got the piece, a quick check revealed it was a composite - the central area(up to the outside edge
of the kozuka/kogai ana)is soft metal (yamagane, I think), and the rim is yamagane also - but the but the web
is actually iron(!)
Here's some pics I shot of the piece that show this (note that I set the light to show off the corrosion more than
I otherwise would have as is reveals other details well - pardon the dust/fibers - I didn't take much time on 'em or
blow it up as much as I probably should have):
http://www.rkgphotos.com/mystery_tsuba/my_pics/The overall exposure is actually really close to spot on - I just wanted to show this so you can see what kind of
difference correct (or deliberate) lighting can make... (FWIW, the exposure is only a little over exposed - a gray card
(next to the piece) reads 1/4 to 1/2 stop over middle gray in this image). I think it also shows how careful you have
to be lighting old iron - somebody might think the "light" patina areas are active corrosion - they aren't.
But back to the tsuba...
It also looks like the central region/rim (and possibly the entire surface) is lacquered to me. If you also look carefully
(see the tsuba_front_crop_3.jpg image in the above directory), it looks like the ana were cut after the center disk was
installed (you can see the "blend" running around the outside of the ana).
The piece confuses me - I'm not at all sure its anywhere near as old as the seller says it was, but it seems to be
a step (or actually two) above dock work (most of that stuff makes me cringe). the composition looks like a
"tea piece" to me, so I think the design says its either very early (when the tea mania was at its peak) or very late
edo (when they were copying the earlier stuff trying to get back to their roots).
To me, the interface between the center disk and the web also seems to be pretty
good - it seems to be well blended and the interface looks to me like a design element - almost like the piece
was produced this way. And I"m thinking its not a patch since it looks like somebody installed the entire center
disk before cutting the ana
So, for all you tsubako here, what do you think of this piece? Is the center a patch? Is there a reason for doing
something like this? I'm trying to understand why the piece was done as a composite like this. It seems like it would
be MUCH less work to have made the center either from all iron or all soft metal of your choice - was one of these
metals that much more expensive than the other in the pre edo or late edo periods? Or am I full of it and somebody
just patched the piece? could they have repurposed all or part of the tsuba from something else?
Thanks,
rkg
(Richard George)
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