The Wolverhampton Art Gallery in Wolverhampton, England, has a collection of 114 historic tsuba from Japan. The is usually a round (or occasionally squarish) guard at the end of the grip of bladed Japanese weapons, like the katana and its various variations. Items in the collection range from the Momoyama period (16th century) to the end of the Edo period (19th century).
The were part of a wider collection of weapons and sword guards donated by Councilor Davis Green in October 1924. Originally the collection belonged to a Mr. C.E.F. Griffiths and was loaned to the gallery. The collection was reclaimed by the family, it is presumed that Mr. Griffiths died, and put it up for auction at Dudley Auction Rooms. Councilor Green bought the whole collection for £350 and donated it to the gallery.
Illustrated here is an example of a copper,, in the Hamano Nara style. The has copper . The design in with gold inlay depicts the myth of Shōki and the demon[1] with Shōki on the upper side of the and a demon on the reverse. The (signature) reads: .[2] The historian Henri L. Joly confirms that Masayuki is the same person as Shōzui, an important founder member of the Hamano branch of the Nara school. Mr. Hara Shinkichi and Naunton have identified that Shōzui also used the names Miboku and Otsuryūken. The dates for Masayuki are 1695–1796.[3] [4]
During the Edo period (1603–1868) the Tokugawa shogunate had a very strict dress code for attending the court. Samurai were required to wear kamishimo, or court dress. They wore the hakama, kimono and a special outer kimono with 'wings'. Sometimes they wore a shorter version of the wakizashi, or short sword, called a . The koshirae for the sword was also very precise. All the fittings were made of shakudō with a ground. The designs were also formal and consisted of flowers, family crests (mon), the crest of a daimyō, kiri blossom (paulownia flowers), or a dragon in clouds.
The with gold shown below in the image gallery is typical of the kind of designed for use at court. Its small size means it was made to fit a . It has a design of a bird with foliage and flowers on a ground. It is from the Kikugawa school popular during the latter part of the Tokugawa shogunate. The reads, who is known to have been practicing during the later half of the nineteenth century. He was a pupil of Muneyoshi, who acquired the nickname [5] because of his skill carving chrysanthemums. Later he studied the work of Chizuka Hisanari.[6]