Lot Essay
In the W. L. Behrens catalogue, part III, H. L. Joly describes a similar tsuba in the following terms:
Sentoku, inlaid with the Thirty-six Poems in minute gold wire, signed Masaaki of Chikuzen, aged 69. This man's work rivals in minuteness and perfection of inlay the best productions of Shoami Masahisa (Masatomi) of Matsuyama, by whom a Kozuka exists in the present collection (826 PLATE VIII.). Of this latter craftsman, the Hamburg Kunstgewerbe Museum possesses several Kozuka, one of which contains well over one thousand legible characters. Masaaki may have been related with Masahisa as teacher and pupil, his work is not common. I have a small tsuba by him decorated with feathers minutely inlaid in gold wire. The subject of the present piece is repeated in a Kozuka by Shoami Masahisa (shakudo nanako inscribed San Jiu Rokkasen on a sliding ita which discloses the actual series of Thirty-six Poems) in the collection of Mr. O. C. Raphael. - (H.L.J.)
Sentoku, inlaid with the Thirty-six Poems in minute gold wire, signed Masaaki of Chikuzen, aged 69. This man's work rivals in minuteness and perfection of inlay the best productions of Shoami Masahisa (Masatomi) of Matsuyama, by whom a Kozuka exists in the present collection (826 PLATE VIII.). Of this latter craftsman, the Hamburg Kunstgewerbe Museum possesses several Kozuka, one of which contains well over one thousand legible characters. Masaaki may have been related with Masahisa as teacher and pupil, his work is not common. I have a small tsuba by him decorated with feathers minutely inlaid in gold wire. The subject of the present piece is repeated in a Kozuka by Shoami Masahisa (shakudo nanako inscribed San Jiu Rokkasen on a sliding ita which discloses the actual series of Thirty-six Poems) in the collection of Mr. O. C. Raphael. - (H.L.J.)