188 - An elegant tsuba in Kaga style

An elegant tsuba in Kaga style dating: Edo Period (1603-1867) provenance: Japan, Made of iron, of aoi-gata form, with gold and aokin hira-zōgan, ke-bori, and copper sekigane. Decorated with a hōō bird among kiri flowers. Kozuka and kōgai hitsu-ana. Suki-nokoshi-mimi. Mid-Edo period. The further the artists of the Kaga school departed from the original Yoshirō tradition, and the more their work was influenced by other schools, the wider the range of materials and subjects became. Alongside the Morisada Yoshirō group, it was particularly the Nagayoshi family that, from the mid-17th century and over thirteen generations, developed the technique of kaga-zōgan to perfection. Early Kaga tsuba are rarely signed. Owing to the emergence of new groups and the production of numerous forgeries from the late 18th century onwards, individual pieces are difficult to classify. The tsuba is illustrated and described in Japanese, English, and German in Tsuba by Günther Heckmann, H.U.B. Verlag, Nürtingen, 1995, no. T56.