Onin tsuba with sun and moon motif, the sun being the circle and the waxing moon being the oval.  Four concentric circles of brass tenzogan define the outer plate while senzogan outline the sukashi and define the seppa-dai.  This sukashi motif is somewhat esoteric, but reliably datable to the  Muromachi period when it enjoyed some popular appeal.  The large sukashi elements likely did not serve as hitsu-ana, thus this piece can be considered reliably ubu (unaltered).  The iron is very high  quality and the colour is a nice deep black. 

Onin tsuba, especially ten-zogan pieces from this period are commonly encountered with much of the inlay missing, and thus a reasonable amount of loss is considered acceptable with this group.  The fact that this tsuba still retains the vast majority of the original ten zogan makes this a truly rare piece.  This tsuba came from an old European collection, and has never been published.

Mid Muromachi Period (late 15th c.)      7.6 x 7.6 x 0.25 cm.

 

$2500