Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba)

An unpublished catalogue of the A. H. Church collection of Japanese sword-guards (tsuba) by Albert James Koop.

The A.H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba) by Albert James Koop

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Mokkō-shaped tsuba with bottle gourd vines

  • Literature notes

    Mokkō; thickened towards the edge; modelled completely in the round as a tangled mass of bottle-gourd vines, the small fruits and many of the leaves covered with tinted gold nunome.

    Somewhat resembles in design a smaller guard, also of mokkō shape, acquired by Mr. C.P.Peak at the Oscar Björck Sale (Glendinings, Jan.1923, lot 296), illustrated on plate VII of the sale catalogue. There, however, the venation of the leaves is in gold inlay, not nunome.
  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia Japan (place of creation)
    Date
    c. 1700
    Material and technique
    iron, with cut and filed openwork decoration, and gold nunome-zōgan decoration
    Dimensions
    8.5 x 8 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    cut,
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Bequeathed by Sir Arthur H. Church, 1915.
    Accession no.
    EAX.10750
  • Further reading

    Koop, Albert James, The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba), 3 vols (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1929), no. 750

Glossary (2)

nunome-zōgan, tsuba

  • nunome-zōgan

    Decorative application of metal sheeting (generally of gold or silver) where the iron ground is first cross-hatched and the metal burnished on.

  • tsuba

    Japanese sword guard.

Location

    • currently in research collection

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Publications online

  • The A.H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba) by Albert James Koop

    The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba)

    Mokkō; thickened towards the edge; modelled completely in the round as a tangled mass of bottle-gourd vines, the small fruits and many of the leaves covered with tinted gold nunome.

    Somewhat resembles in design a smaller guard, also of mokkō shape, acquired by Mr. C.P.Peak at the Oscar Björck Sale (Glendinings, Jan.1923, lot 296), illustrated on plate VII of the sale catalogue. There, however, the venation of the leaves is in gold inlay, not nunome.
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