Round tsuba with landscape and plants

Title

Round tsuba with landscape and plants
Associated place

Japan (place of creation)
Date

16th century (1501 - 1600)
Material and technique

iron, inlaid with brass and copper wire, with taka-zōgan (high relief inlay) in brass, and with cut and filed brass openwork decoration
Material index

iron;

brass;

copper
Technique index

forged;

inlaid;

openwork;

cut
Object type

tsuba
Dimensions

8 x 8 x 0.5 cm (height x width x depth)
No. of items

1
Credit line

Bequeathed by Dame Jemima Church, in accordance with the wishes of her Husband, Sir Arthur H. Church, 1929.
Museum location

not on display
Museum department

Eastern Art
Accession no.

EAX.10115.a

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Catalogue text

On each face simple low-relief modelling representing rocks and hillocks, those in base outlined in brass incrustation (largely missing); also in raised brass are two circular openwork basket-dykes (jakago) and the water swirling round them at the base of a cascade; further, in minute inlay of brass and copper wire, are to be seen various flowering plants and grasses; the brass incrustation also includes the branches of leafless trees; "wire" edge.

This guard belongs to a rare and extremely interesting group of which every important collection appears to have a single example or (like the Victoria and Albert Museum) at most two or three.

tsuba

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