"Tsuba" with snail, orchid and well - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

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“Tsuba” with snail, orchid and well

Anonymous, japanese. 19th century

6,9 x 6,5 x 0,9 cm

19th century

82/990

Donación de doña María de Arechavaleta, de la colección de don José Palacio

An almost circular (7 x 6.5 cm) iron tsuba with gold adornments, showing a snail and an orchid on the obverse, and the curb or parapet of a small well for purifications on the reverse. A bamboo ladle for drawing water hangs over the parapet, a standard feature of tea-house gardens. It is a remarkable achievement to have insinuated so much with so few decorative ingredients: this is the suggestive power of Japanese art transferred to the minimal surface of a tsuba. (Fernando García Gutiérrez, 2008)

Selected bibliography

  • Arte japonés y japonismo [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 172, 508-509, 511, 513, 520, 523, 525, 541, n° cat. 36.
  • García Gutiérrez, Fernando. "Tsuba : Japoniako zaldunen ezaugarri bat. Tsuba bilduma Bilboko Arte Eder Museoan = Un signo distintivo de los caballeros de Japón. Colección de tsuba en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao = The Mark of the Kinghts of Japan. The Tsuba Collection at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum", B'07 : Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin, n° 3. 2008. pp. 101-159.
  • Caeiro Izquierdo, Luis. La Cultura Samurai : armas japonesas en las colecciones españolas [tesis inédita]. Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1991.
  • Sala Ivars, Marcos Andrés. "Estudio y catalogación de las colecciones públicas de sables japoneses en el País Vasco", Ars Bilduma, n. 11. 2021. p. 75.