Iron tsuba of round form with design of butterfly (left) and dragonfly (right) in openwork (sukashi), outlined with brass wire. Thin plate also decorated with five concentric circular rows of brass dots (nail heads) in ten-zōgan; brass wire outlines of the center of the plate.

School: Ōnin ten-zogan. Late Muromachi period, 16th century.

Diameter: 88 mm, thickness at seppa-dai: 3.1 mm.

Another tsuba of similar design, Tōshō school, is illustrated in this collection; see TSU-0353.

TSU-0353: Tōshō tsuba, Muromachi period.

Reference to the design has been found at “Japanese Swords and Tsuba from the Professor A. Z. Freeman and the Phyllis Sharpe Memorial collections”. Sotheby’s, London, Thursday 10 April 1997; p. 18, item 37: “pierced with two large formalised butterflies…”.

A kamakura-bori tsuba. Momoyama period. Freeman & Sharpe Memorial Collections.