SAOTOME SCHOOL

BRIDGE CAP MOTIF

3″ X 3″

The Saotome were a school of pre-Edo armorers (katchushi) founded in Sagami province by Nobuyasu of Shimotsuke. Their works are well forged iron plate with, as in this example, or without sukashi designs.

The Saotome school was the predecessor to the Tenbo (tembo, tempo) school. They differ in that the tenbo tsuba featured hot stamps (kokuin) on their works.

I believe this to be an earlier work, as evidenced by the quality of the plate.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say pre-edo, but the quality of the iron plate does make me lean towards early Edo.  This opposed to being one of the late edo pieces which attempt to emulate the earlier works.

As you can see the oversized hitsu-ana on this tsuba represent bridge caps or possibly matsukawa.

$450 plus S/H 

REDUCED: $400 plus S/H