Kaga Yoshiro Tsuba with Cartwheels and Fox

Exhibition:
"Samurai - Passato e presente", Novara 2012 

Literature:
G.Piva - S. Verrina, Samurai - Passato e Presente, cat. A13, Novara, 2012

Iron with brass hira-zogan

Diameter: 82 mm
Thickness: 4 mm

An excellent ubu example of Kaga Yoshiro work from the Muromachi period.  Very dense iron with good tekkotsu, not factory plate.  All the inlay is intact.  At the time that this was made, brass was an extremely valuable commodity in Japan, rivaling gold, as it was imported from China. The shape is a mokkogata with the pierced "hearts" usually seen on handachi mountings. The hira-zogan technique, with the brass inlay on the same level of the iron surface, is typical of the Kaga area.
Another feature worth noting is the punched ground in selected areas of the iron surface.

Tsuba for sale