Page 139 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

73
Pair of sword guards with flowers,
plants, and insects
Dated 1857
Shakudó, copper, silver, and gold
Height 8; 7.5 (3 Vs, 2 Vs)
Tokyo National Museum
Illustrated page 121

• These sword guards for a match-
ing pair of long and short swords are
138 decorated with spring and autumn
flowers, plants, and insects inlaid in
colored metals on a shakudó ground.
The ground is covered with a regular
linear array of small raised protuber-
ances known as nanako (fish roe),
formed with a hollow-tipped punch;
the flowers and insects are sculpted
separately and set into sections cut
below the surface.
72 The signature reads "Goto Hôkkyô
Ichijô," and the inscription is "Tôfu [ni]
oite tsukuru" (Made in the Eastern
Capital [Edo]). Ichijó was the seven-
teenth generation of the Goto family
that began with Yüjó (1440-1512). The
standard decorative themes of the
72 title "Hógen" (the highest of three Goto school were bird, animal, and
Sword guard with horses such honorifics) in respect for the ex- plant studies but especially Chinese
cellence of his craft, and he inscribed
Dated June 1845 the title with his name on this subjects. Throughout the Edo period
Silver the family made fittings in a repeti-
piece. Takechika worked in Kyoto but
Height 8.3 (3 V 4) returned to his birthplace of Tottori tive style for the Tokugawa clan, and
Tokyo National Museum branches of the family worked for
in Inaba province in his advanced daimyo in the provinces. They were
years. His teacher Masachika had the
• The carving of the horses in high freedom to travel between Edo and also officials of the Tokugawa mint,
relief on this silver sword guard is a Akita, where he was retained by the and their seals and ink certifications
further sophistication of the open- are found on Edo-period gold óban
lord of that domain. Inscribed "made
work guards of the early Edo period in to the liking of Akita Kunitada" ("Akira coins. The last active master of the
which only a two-dimensional out- Kunitada konomi [ni] yoru"), this school, Ichijô greatly expanded
line of the subject was cut through a guard was probably made by Takechika the subject matter beyond the tradi-
plain metal sheet, usually of black- on commission for Kunitada of Akita tional. He received the Buddhist title
patinated iron. The guard is signed under instructions from Masachika. VH "Hôkkyô" (part of his signature here)
"Shiba Hógen Takechika," for the in 1824, the year he created a mount-
maker Yoshida Takechika (active mid- ing for Emperor Kokaku's sword,
nineteenth century). Yoshida studied made by the fourteenth-century
in Edo under Tsuchiya Masachika master Masamune, the greatest of all
(d. 1860) from whom he derived one Japanese swordsmiths. Ichijô was
character of his name. Like Masachika, exalted to the higher rank of Hógen
he was invested with the Buddhist in 1863, when he was again in Kyoto
and made a mounting for Emperor
Kómei. VH