Die Blume und ihre Besucherin
A Lily and a Wasp
An oval iron wasp tsuba, dark brown, with two hitsu-ana. Fine lines run out from the centre to the rim on both faces, like rays. On one face a gold wasp hovers at the top. Below it, at the right, a lily has opened, gold, with a closed bud beside it on a thin stem. On the other face a single bloom hangs from a curved stem at the left. That is all.
Das Objekt
The radiating lines are file marks. The Victoria and Albert Museum calls such striations, radiating from the centre, amida-yasuri. The name joins yasuri, file marks, to Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light. The rim is slightly raised and rounded. The wasp and the flowers are gold, set into the iron in low relief, with a touch of copper on the wasp’s body. The stems and a leaf are cut into the ground.
Zwei Seiten
The two faces are made as a pair. On one, the flower hangs alone and the plate around it is empty. On the other, the flower has opened and the wasp has come. The guard gives the before and the after, and leaves the space between them to the file marks.
Eine Korrektur
An earlier version of this page wondered whether the warm brown plate might be yamagane. It is iron.
The Wasp Tsuba
Tsuba. Mumei. Tetsu, amida-yasuri, iroe-zogan in kin und akagane. Naga-maru-gata, zwei Hitsu-ana. Yuri to hachi-zu. Edo-Zeit. Privatsammlung, erworben in Europa.
In the collection
- Type
- Tosogu › Tsuba
- Period
- Edo-Zeit
- Material
- Tetsu
- Motif
- InsektenPflanzen und Jahreszeiten
