Die Ratte und der Fächer
A Rat and a War Fan, Okamoto Sadamasa
A round tsuba by Okamoto Sadamasa, sentoku, warm and slightly clouded. At the top a gold moon rises behind long bands of mist. On the right lie two fans. One is a folding fan, half open, its leaf engraved with flowers. The other is a gunbai, the rounded war fan with which a commander gave his signals, its dark face set with a net pattern and small gold birds, on a red handle. From the handle a cord runs loose across the lower edge, and at the left a silver rat has taken hold of it.
Das Objekt
Sentoku is a brass, and the plate keeps the soft yellow-brown of the alloy. The figures are inlaid in other metals: gold for the moon, the birds and the flowers of the fan, silver for the rat and the cord, a copper-red for the handle. The mist is drawn in thin inlaid lines of red and black. The signature, Sadamasa, 定政, is cut on the seppa-dai to the left of the tang opening and closed with a kao. The NBTHK has papered the guard Tokubetsu Hozon.
Die Rückseite
A weeping willow fills the back. Its branches hang down across the upper half, and its trunk runs along the right edge. Beneath it, low near the ground, small three-leaved plants grow in pairs, a few blades of grass among them.
Die Szene
Nothing here happens loudly. A commander’s fan has been put down beside a fan for summer evenings, and an animal that belongs to the storehouse has found its cord. The moon looks on. Whether the maker meant a joke at the expense of the warrior’s dignity, or only a quiet night after the fighting, the guard does not say.
Aus der Sammlung Fahrenhorst
The guard comes from the collection of Walter Fahrenhorst, one of the early German collectors of Japanese sword fittings. In 1934 he gave his collection a building of its own, and he died in 1938. Thirty years later the collection came apart. The collector Tomohiko Imani took a part of it back to Japan and showed it in Tokyo, and other pieces went to auction in Germany. This guard was one of them. The label of the Lempertz auction in Cologne, from December 1968, is still fixed to its back. It belongs to the history of the piece, and it stays there.
The story of Walter Fahrenhorst is told in the European Perspective series on this site, where this guard also appears.
The Sadamasa Tsuba
Tsuba. Signiert Sadamasa (定政) mit Kao, Okamoto. Sentoku, iroe-zogan in kin, gin und akagane. Maru-gata. Ratte am Band eines Gunbai, Faltfächer, Mond im Nebel; Rückseite Trauerweide mit Gräsern. Späte Edo-Zeit. NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon. Aus der Sammlung Walter Fahrenhorst. Privatsammlung, erworben in Europa.
In the collection
- Type
- Tosogu › Tsuba
- School
- Okamoto
- Period
- Edo-Zeit › Späte Edo-Zeit
- Material
- Sentoku
- Motif
- Tiere und VögelGegenstände
