Sword guard (Tsuba) With Flower Basket Motif (花籠透鐔)

Fittings maker 萩谷勝平 Hagiya Katsuhira Japanese

Fittings maker 鈴木勝容 Suzuki Katsuhiro Japanese

1860

Not on view

This is the smaller guard (tsuba) of a pair of sword guards that is the product of a collaboration among three artists. The father and son Hagiya Katsuhira (萩谷勝平, 1804–1886) and Suzuki Katsuhiro (鈴木勝容, 1827–1886) made the smaller guard, for the wakizashi, in 1860. It features an extraordinary openwork design of a flower basket whose quatrefoil rim is decorated with a Greek-style key pattern inlaid in gold. Ishiguro Masaaki (石黒政明, born 1813) crafted a larger guard (acc. no. 19.71.7) of the same design to create a matching set for the traditional pair of swords worn by a samurai .

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Sword guard (Tsuba) With Flower Basket Motif (花籠透鐔)
Fittings maker: 萩谷勝平 Hagiya Katsuhira (Japanese, 1804–1886)
Fittings maker: 鈴木勝容 Suzuki Katsuhiro (Japanese, 1827–1886)
Date: 1860
Culture: Japanese
Medium: Iron, copper-silver alloy (shibuichi), gold, silver, copper
Dimensions: H. 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm); W. 2 5/8 in. (6.7 cm); thickness 1/4 in. (0.6 cm); Wt. 3 oz. (85 g)
Classification: Sword Furniture-Tsuba
Credit Line: Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Fund, 1919
Object Number: 19.71.6
Curatorial Department: Arms and Armor

More Artwork

By 萩谷勝平 Hagiya Katsuhira

In the same medium

From the same time and place

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Sword guard (<i>Tsuba</i>) With Flower Basket Motif (花籠透鐔), 石黒政明 Ishiguro Masaaki Japanese, Iron, copper-silver alloy (<i>shibuichi</i>), gold, silver, copper, Japanese — Sword guard (*Tsuba*) With Flower Basket Motif (花籠透鐔)
石黒政明 Ishiguro Masaaki
first half 19th century

Scabbard Cover

Japanese

early 19th century

Helmet, Steel, iron, silver, copper alloy (niello), gold, textile, Crimean or South Russian — Helmet
Crimean or South Russian
dated A.H. 1223/1808–9 CE

Sword Guard (Tsuba), Ishiguro Koreyoshi Japanese, Iron, gold, copper, silver, copper-silver alloy (shibuichi), copper-gold alloy (shakudō), Japanese — Sword Guard (Tsuba)
Ishiguro Koreyoshi
1840–60

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