Der Sprung des Löwen
A Leaping Lion and Peonies, in Iron
A botan shishi tsuba of iron in mokko-gata, the surface rough and pitted like weathered stone. Along the top a shishi leaps over a ridge of rock, worked in dark shakudo in high relief. Its body is stretched out and one forepaw already reaches down for the stone ahead. The mane and tail curl tightly, and the eyes are touched with gold. Gold flecks lie on the rock around it. At the lower right a peony opens in silver among gold leaves, with a bud above it and a tuft of bamboo grass below.
The back is almost empty. Only at the lower edge does a small waterfall drop between two rocks, cut in a few lines into the iron, the rocks touched with gold.
JAANUS, the dictionary of Japanese art terms, describes the stone bridge of Mount Tiantai and the waterfall beside it. It tells the legend of a lioness who pushes her cubs off the bridge and raises only those strong enough to climb back up the precipice. This guard leaves the bridge out. What remains is the rock, the leap and, on the other side, the falling water.
The guard is unsigned and has no paper. The same subject, a lion with peonies, appears on the collection’s tsuba by Yokoya Soyo II, cut in line on polished shakudo. An earlier version of this page left the maker open and placed it in the late Edo period. The collection keeps it at the Edo period until the piece is papered.
Tsuba. Mumei. Tetsu, takabori und iroe-zogan in shakudo, kin und gin; Rückseite kebori mit kin. Mokko-gata. Botan shishi-zu; Rückseite Taki-zu. Edo-Zeit. Privatsammlung, erworben in Europa.
In the collection
- Type
- Tosogu › Tsuba
- Period
- Edo-Zeit
- Material
- Tetsu
- Motif
- Drachen und FabelwesenPflanzen und Jahreszeiten
