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

Besides giving the name to the damascening or watering of iron guards or steel blades, the term Moku-me (“wood-grain”) also describes an analogous process in which sheets of the various copper alloys, as well as copper itself, silver and sometimes gold, are soldered together into a single sheet, which is then folded, crumpled or dented, in a manner reminiscent of geological strata. The resulting uneven surface, necessary to bring out the patina-colours of the alloys, wood or, better, to “marbled” paper.

In the following, as in most examples, of mokume work on guards, the actual mokume only forms a veneer soldered to the faces and edge of a core of pure copper, and solid mokume guards are very rare (one in [the Victoria and Albert Museum]).

The term Guri (or guri-bori) is applied to an exact imitation in metal of the lacquer process of the same name. Here the superimposed sheets of metal are kept flat and the treatment consists in cutting bold scrollwork patterns in deep V-shaped grooves, the slopes of which, after pickling, reveal the alternation of patina-colours. [EAX.11193] illustrates the ordinary type of guri guard, [EAX.11190] being an unusual variety of the normal technique.

Several artists dating from the latter part of the 18^th century have signed their names to work in mokume and guri, among them the members of a small Yedo school bearing the surname of Takahashi [Japanese text]. In the best work the soldering by which the metal sheets are united is almost invisible.

Mokkō-shaped tsuba with wood grain decoration (EAX.11187)    Tsuba with wood grain decoration (EAX.11188)    Tsuba with wood grain decoration and plaited rim (EAX.11189)

Tsuba with chrysanthemum florets (EAX.11190)    Tsuba with wood grain decoration (EAX.11191)    Chrysanthemoid tsuba (EAX.11192)

Tsuba with scrolls (EAX.11193)