JUKOKUSAI MASAHIDE: A RARE IRON TSUBA DEPICTING TAI SHUN, WITH AN NBTHK TOKUBETSU KICHO CERTIFICATE

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JUKOKUSAI MASAHIDE: A RARE IRON TSUBA DEPICTING TAI SHUN, WITH AN NBTHK TOKUBETSU KICHO CERTIFICATE By Jukokusai Masahide, signed Jukokusai Masahide Japan, early 19th century, Edo period (1615-1868) Of mokkogata shape with rounded edges, with two shibuichi-filled kogai hitsu-ana, copper sekigane, worked in gold and silver takazogan and fine takabori and kebori engravings, depicting the young Tai Shun tilling his father’s field with the help of two small birds and a large elephant. The ground is highlighted in gold hirazogan and the elephant’s tusk is strikingly worked in silver takazogan. Signed JUKOKUSAI MASAHIDE. HEIGHT 9.2 cm, LENGTH 8.6 cm WEIGHT 174.8 g With a NBTHK Tokubetsu Kicho (‘especially precious’) certificate issued on 21 May, Showa 56 (1981). The artist is listed in Haynes Index of Japanese Sword Fittings and Associated Artists on p. 859 (H 03963.0). Haynes identifies him as a student of the first Ishiguro Masatsune. Tai Shun (Chinese: Da Shun) is a legendary Chinese emperor. His ‘rags-to-royalty’ story is the first in Guo Jujing’s Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety, which was written during the Yuan dynasty. The story goes, Shun’s mother died when the boy was young and his father remarried. The stepmother treated Shun cruelly, turning his brothers against him. Still loyal to his father, Shun was commanded by his stepmother to plow his father’s mountain field. Observing the boy’s filial piety, the animals joined him in what would have been an impossible task.

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