Tsuba: Kuruma Sukashi Zu

A wheel guard of o-tafuku mokkō form, cut with the full surname signature Yamasaka Kichibei (山坂吉兵), is called by the published sources outstanding among his works[[c:1]], and it sets out the whole of his art: a hammered iron plate, the hard knots of tekkotsu standing in it, pierced with a single bold device. Yamakichibei is named with Hōan as one of the two makers who represent the Owari iron tsuba, flourishing in the same age as Nobuie and Kanayama from the end of the Muromachi period into the Momoyama, and he is said to have begun as an armourer to the Oda house. The name was carried for several generations. The published sources hold that the signature cut in full as Yamasaka Kichibei, without abbreviating the surname, is the oldest in manner, a man of about the Genki era, and that the line ran on until the Sakura-Yamakichi of the Kanbun to Genroku years. One guard so signed is called the so-called Dai-shodai, a fine piece[[c:2]].

His signatures read Yamasaka Kichibei, Yamasaka Kichibe, Yama Kichibei and Yama Kichibe, and once Kanayama Kichibei. The published sources explain the final he as an abbreviation of e, the last syllable of Kichibei. The plate beneath them is consistent. It is a well-forged iron finished with the hammer (tsuchime-ji) and the fire (yakite), and the annealing raises the tekkotsu here and there, at times as grains, at times as lumps, across both the plate and the rim. The sources say this gives the iron both a refined taste and a sense of strength, and on one hatchet guard they write that the granular and lumpy iron bones run in every direction, so that the surface is exceedingly varied. On a chrysanthemum guard the rust carries a reddish tone, and the scenery of the hammered and fire-finished iron is called freely changing.

The devices are few, plain and boldly cut. The wheel appears on three of his designated guards, and the sources note that the wheel guard can be traced to the Nanbokuchō period, on the sword raised by the mounted warrior of the portrait said to show Ashikaga Takauji, and that it may carry a Buddhist meaning. The geese and the rice sickle appear on two, pierced large to left and right as a seasonal image, one of them named among the masterpieces of the first-generation Yamakichibei[[c:3]]. Beside these stand an oar crossed with a scull in shadow openwork, a hatchet cut boldly at staggered heights, and a chrysanthemum, once as the shape of the whole guard carved down in sukidashi and once as openwork on a filed plate. Two guards carry a radiating Amida filing (amida-yasuri), one with a small hedge openwork, and of the oar-and-scull guard the sources write that it shows the true ability of Yamakichibei[[c:4]].

The rim and the fittings of the plate are part of the reading. On two guards the rim is turned back in a strong uchikaeshi, which tightens the shape, and on one the iron bones appear along the turned-back rim itself. On the Dai-shodai wheel guard the unused hitsu-ana are filled with lead set a touch below the plate, the filling the sources call Owari-ume and treasure. Of a wheel guard signed Yamasaka Kichibe the sources write that the crisp lines of its openwork give a strong sense of a guard born in the hard age of the Warring States[[c:5]].

The published sources read him beside Hōan more than beside Nobuie. They say repeatedly that Yamakichi shares a manner with Hōan, that his shape is imposing, and that his guards look all the finer when mounted on the uchigatana koshirae fashionable in his day[[c:6]]. One entry also notes a manner in common with Nobuie, his contemporary. His own marks are those the sources name: the hammered and fire-finished plate with its raised iron bones, the bold device pierced through it, and the strong turned-back rim. One of his guards survives on such a mount, an uchigatana koshirae of the late Muromachi with a vermilion lacquered scabbard and a black leather wrapped hilt; the guard was fitted later, but the sources call the survival of such a mounting extremely rare[[c:7]].

Ten works of his are designated at the Jūyō level, nine guards and the one koshirae that carries a guard of his, and none is designated higher. No daimyō provenance is recorded for them, and their holders at designation were private collectors in Japan and, for the hatchet guard, in Germany. An Owari iron guard of the first generation, signed and carrying its iron bones, comes to market only from time to time, and the Yamasaka Kichibei signature of the earliest hand is the rarest form among them.