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

Hamano [Japanese text] Shōzui (1696-1769), a pupil of Nara Toshinaga I founded a most important school, which worked in the spirit of the later Ko-Nara masters, but stands out boldly by its extraordinary fertility in the use of the softer metals and alloys and the brilliancy and vividness of its encrusted reliefs. The Hamano workers seem to ply an inexhaustible palette of colours, and the exuberance and perfect finish of their decoration images the luxury of the age and foreshadows that decadent straining after effect which mars much of the later 19^th century work. They display a tendency to higher relief than the Nara generally, although some of their work is in the shishiai-bori style of the Jōi group. The predilection shown by Toshinga I for war-scenes and other subjects with a human interest is largely followed by Shōzui and his successors, but motives based on inanimate nature and not disdained.

The school numbers a host of renowned pupils, among whom the Akabumi of Shōnai are dealt with in [another chapter].

Tsuba with birds, pine, and a full moon (EAX.10972)    Tsuba depicting two of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (EAX.10973)    Tsuba in the form of three kiri, or paulownia leaves, and crickets (EAX.10974)

Tsuba depicting Taira no Tadamasa catching the oil thief (EAX.10975)    Tsuba with two sennin, or Taoist hermits (EAX.10976)    Tsuba depicting three Chinese men (EAX.10977)

Tsuba with shishi, or lion dogs, and peonies (EAX.10978)    Tsuba depicting the Chinese sage Lin Ho-ch'ing pouring wine (EAX.10979)    Tsuba depicting the Chinese hero Chao Yün galloping through smoke (EAX.10980)

Tsuba in the form of two awabi shells with a tako, or cuttlefish (EAX.10981)    Tsuba depicting a hunter in a landscape (EAX.10982)    Tsuba depicting the witch of Adachi-gahara looking at the Buddha (EAX.10983)

Tsuba depicting the Chinese generals Kuan Yü and Ch'ang Fei (EAX.10984)    Tsuba depicting an armed warrior standing by the sea (EAX.10985)    Tsuba depicting a fisherman on a beach (EAX.10986)

Mokkō-shaped tsuba depicting a court noble looking at Mount Fuji (EAX.10987)    Mokkō-shaped tsuba depicting Seidzu Kwannon, a form of the Bodhisat Avalokitesvara (EAX.10988)    Lenticular tsuba depicting the Chinese general Kuan Yü with his dragon (EAX.10989)

Tsuba depicting Takeshiuchi-no-Sukune receiving gems from a demon (EAX.10990)    Tsuba with a Boys' Festival Banner depicting Shōki and a demon (EAX.10991)    Tsuba with two cranes in a stream (EAX.10992)

Tsuba depicting three of the Six Poets (EAX.10993)    Tsuba with three egrets (EAX.10994)    Aori-shaped tsuba depicting Ono Michikaze in a landscape (EAX.10995)

Tsuba depicting a man with a fox trap (EAX.10996)    Lenticular tsuba depicting two Chinese sages studying a scroll (EAX.10997)    Tsuba with three egrets in a stream (EAX.10998)