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

Gotō [Japanese text] Shirobei Masaoku (d. 1512), a samurai of Mino province, better known by his art-name Yūjō, founded a school which, like those of the Nara and the Yokoya , was destined to exert a most potent and lasting influence on the subsequent groups in this series.

Yūjō, working at the Kiōto for the eighth Ashikaga Shōgun, Yoshimasa, established the classical Gotō style (known as iye-bori, “the carving of the house”), and this was closely followed by the five succeeding Masters (in direct descent), as well as by a number of famous pupils and the branches founded by them.

Sword-mounts in this classical Gotō style remained till the very latest date the correct wear for shogunal court ceremonies, but until the time of the 5^th Master of the main school, Tokujō (1549-1631), guards were not included among the productions of Gotō workers. Characteristic features are the use of shakudō as a groundwork, plain save for the nanako or “fish-roe” granulation (an invention credited to Yūjō himself) and the disposition on it of animal or other reliefs treated in a somewhat severe manner, in incrustation of gold or gilt metal.

The 7^th Master, Kenjō (1585-1663), broke away from the rigid traditions of the classical style, and, like most of the succeeding nine Masters and their pupils, tended to greater variety and naturalism in manner and design.

Under Renjō, the 10^th Master (1627-1709), the main school migrated to Yedo, where the rivalry of the now fashionable Nara and Yokoya styles tempted it still further from the classical iyebori. Much the same story must be told of the various branch schools, and the new styles thus originated are illustrated in the next group.

Tsuba with dragon and clouds (EAX.10883)    Tsuba with wisteria (EAX.10884)    Tsuba with lespedeza foliage and flowers (EAX.10885)

Tsuba with grape vine (EAX.10886)    Tsuba with heraldic chrysanthemums and leaves (EAX.10887)    Mokkō-shaped tsuba with peonies (EAX.10888)

Tsuba with dragons (EAX.10889)    Mokkō-shaped tsuba with fan mounts depicting flowers and three of the Six Poets (EAX.10890)    Mokkō-shaped tsuba with sea shells amid waves (EAX.10891)

Mokkō-shaped tsuba with karahana, or Chinese flowers (EAX.10892)    Tsuba with flowering plum tree (EAX.10293)    Mokkō-shaped tsuba with punched decoration (EAX.10894)