Lot 40
40
AN IYO SHOAMI TSUBA

Details
AN IYO SHOAMI TSUBA
EDO PERIOD (DATED EIGHTH MONTH JOKYO 1 [1684]), SIGNED YOSHU JU SHOAMI HIDENAGA

The round brass plate is pierced and carved in the round with three comma motifs (mitsutomoe). The thick rim is carved in kebori with stylized dragons, clouds, and key-fret designs. The reverse is similarly decorated--height 7.5cm., width 7.3cm., thickness 5.5mm.
Provenance
Alexander Moslé
Literature
Moslé (1914), Vol. I, no. 617, p. 210 for signature; illustrated pl. L, no. 617.

Lot Essay

Dated examples of the work of the Iyo Shoami school are extremely rare. The school relocated in Shikoku fifty years before this tsuba was made. We do not have this artist's dates, but it is recorded that he died at the age of seventy.