Tsuba with Landscape Design, Mumei (Aizu Shoami) - 12-1698

寸法

縦83.5ミリ　横82.2ミリ　切羽台厚4.5ミリ

Accessories

桐箱

Weight

重量182グラム

As written by the shop

Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors · Show original

Shoami is a major lineage of sword fitting metalsmiths that flourished in various regions from the Muromachi period through the Edo period, leaving behind works that utilized diverse techniques such as sukashibori, takabori, zogan, and iroe based primarily on tetsu-ji; Aizu Shoami, which prospered in Aizu as one of these regional schools, is known for works that pictorially depict figures, flora and fauna, and sansui, creating brilliant variations within heavy ji-tetsu by placing irogane such as kin, gin, shakudo, and suaka at key points. This work is a tsuba that treats a large marugata tetsu-ji as a single sansui painting, developing a landscape of distant mountain ranges and watersides across the omote and ura; on the upper part of the omote, mountain ranges are arranged, with a bridge crossing the waterside in the foreground, and to its right, the figure of a single bird perched on a withered branch is expressed in sukidashi takabori, while the kin-zogan and iroe remaining at key points such as the mountain peaks, bridge, waterside, and bird create an effect like light shining onto the blackish-brown tsuba surface, and the widely left yohaku composes a quiet scene with a sense of perspective. On the ura, mountains hazily receding in the distance are expressed at the top, while rocks and plants projecting over the waterside are arranged at the bottom, and by using irogane for parts of the leaves and branches, it creates variation between the omote and ura while unifying them as a continuous, expansive sansui landscape. The ji-tetsu exhibits a deep blackish-brown koshoku acquired over many years, and the rich texture retaining tsuchime, the soft contours of the uchikaeshi-mimi, and the low-restrained carving show a calm refinement, while the kin-zogan and iroe delicately placed within the tetsu-ji deepen the yugen atmosphere reminiscent of a sansui painting. Both hitsu-ana are carefully filled with shakudo, and it is interesting to note the sense of its history of being cherished and handed down while actually being fitted to koshirae; while possessing a grand sense of volume with a length of 83.5 mm and a weight of 182 grams, the composition that harmoniously unifies the distant mountains, bridge, waterside, bird, and vegetation displays the pictorial quality characteristic of Aizu Shoami, and accompanied by a Hozon Tosogu Kanteisho from the Nippon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai, it is a piece where one can fully enjoy the heavy tetsu-aji and serene sansui expression.