Lot 188
188
A TSUBA BY BUNRYUSHA HIDEOKI AND FIVE OTHERS
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more
A TSUBA BY BUNRYUSHA HIDEOKI AND FIVE OTHERS

EDO PERIOD (18TH/19TH CENTURY)

Details
A TSUBA BY BUNRYUSHA HIDEOKI AND FIVE OTHERS
Edo period (18th/19th century)
A roku-mokko shaped wakizashi tsuba, mokume-hada of shakudo and gold with a roped shakudo fukurin [edge-cover], 7cm.; a rare and very attractive sentoku tsuba carved and raised high from the plate with a pine tree in a storm, a tiger, inlaid in shibuichi and gold with a copper tongue, peers up at a dragon shown in the midst of the storm on the reverse, inlaid in shakudo, shibuichi and gold, a bolt of lightening spears down through the sheeting rain to the plunging waves beneath, signed Bunrusha Okihide, with a kao, 7.9cm.; a rounded square sentoku Nara school tsuba carved and inlaid with Shoki standing beside a pine tree, 7.4cm.; a mokko-shaped copper tsuba overlaid with a centipede, with signature Tou, 8.1cm.; a copper lozenge-shaped tanto tsuba carved and inlaid with a shakudo dragon emerging from the clouds and a shibuichi tiger watching from a cave, other details inlaid in copper and two colours of gold, with signature Yasuchika, 6.6cm.; and a shinchu tanto tsuba of rounded oblong shape, carved in the plate with a willow tree beside a river, an oxherd and his ox sleeping on the bank, 6.2cm. (6)
Provenance
The fourth, W.L. Behrens Collection
The sixth, E.J.L. Gardiner
Literature
The fourth, Henri L. Joly, W. L. Behrens Collection, pt. III, Sword-fittings (London, 1912), no. 1822, pl. XXV.
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Bunryusha Hideoki was born in 1788 and died in 1851. He was of the school of Otsuki Mitsuoki and worked in both Kyoto and Osaka. This powerful tsuba appears to have inspired the artist to turn his signature upside-down - owing, perhaps to the power of his storm and the magical properties of the dragon. Everything is there, the first name, the kakihan and the characters of the go - just upside-down.

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