Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Browse: 1141 objects

Reference URL

Actions

Send e-mail

Contact us about this object

Send e-mail

Send to a friend

Tsuba with tadpoles swimming in a stream

Glossary (2)

shakudō, tsuba

  • shakudō

    alloy of copper and gold, patinated to a dark blue-black colour

  • tsuba

    Japanese sword guard.

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • The A.H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba) by Albert James Koop

    The A. H. Church Collection of Japanese Sword-Guards (Tsuba)

    Faces slightly concave; on the front, below, a few encrusted lines of silver represent a stream with seven tadpoles (shakudō, gold eyes) all swimming in the same direction (to left); at the back three others (no silver); fine ishime ground of short horizontal lines. Signed: Ishiguro Masatsune [Japanese text]. (Perhaps Masatsune I, died 1828.) Kakihan [Figure].

    Ernest Hart Collection, no. 165; then W. J. Stuart Collection and Seymour Trower Collection (part of lot 1558).

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum