Browse: 10610 objects
Mokkō-shaped tsuba with petals or snow crystals
-
Details
- Associated place
- Date
- 18th century (1701 - 1800)
- Artist/maker
-
Shimizu-Jingo School (possibly active 17th - 19th century) (armourer)
- Material and technique
- iron, carved in low relief, and inlaid with silver wire, and with gold and gold wire nunome-zōgan decoration
- Dimensions
- 8.6 x 7.8 x 0.335 cm (height x width x depth)
- Material index
-
processed material › metal › iron,
- Technique index
- Object type index
-
arms/armour › koshirae › kodogu › tsuba
- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Bequeathed by Sir Arthur H. Church, 1915.
- Accession no.
- EAX.10316.a
-
Further reading
Koop, Albert James, The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba), 3 vols (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1929), no. 316 a
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
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Publications online
-
The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba)
Cruciform mokkō; each face with five (or three) flower-forms having five blunt petals, in low relief and gilt in nunome; near these are parts of "snow-heap" rings in silver wire inlay and double-lined karakusa scrollwork in gold wire nunome; faintly raised border of medium width, overrun by the ornament; "peach-shaped" ryōhitsu (of ordinary size, oval with outward point).
The "flowers" probably represent snow-crystals, although in nature these are always sexpartite.
© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum