Kasugano Design Sword Tsuba (Fushimi Sumitomo Metals Family,

Kasugano-zu Tsuba (Sword Guard with the Plain of Kasuga), Signed "Joshu Fushimi-ju Kaneie": A Masterwork of Picture-Style Sword Guards at Eisei Bunko

Tucked into a quiet corner of Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo, the Eisei Bunko Foundation preserves one of the most celebrated sword guards of Japan's transition from medieval warfare to early modern artistry. The Kasugano-zu Tsuba — bearing the inscription "Joshu Fushimi-ju Kaneie" (made by Kaneie, resident of Fushimi in Yamashiro Province) — is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property and a defining example of the so-called "picture-style" (e-fū) sword guard. On its modest disk of iron, no larger than the palm of a hand, an entire poetic landscape of Nara unfolds: the rolling meadows of the Plain of Kasuga, suggested through deep, sculptural carving and whispers of gold and silver inlay. This article introduces the work, its mysterious maker, and the remarkable Hosokawa-family museum that has made it visible to the world.

Historical Background: The Birth of the "Picture Tsuba"

For centuries, Japanese sword guards were primarily functional — sturdy iron disks made by armorers or by swordsmiths themselves, decorated at most with simple openwork patterns. That changed around the late Muromachi to Momoyama period (the 16th century), when a new kind of artisan emerged in the castle town of Fushimi, just south of Kyoto. This was Kaneie, the first known artisan to specialize in tsuba alone and the first to treat the small iron surface as if it were a painter's silk.

Kaneie's biography remains tantalizingly obscure. Reference works generally place him in the late Muromachi to early Momoyama era; his "Fushimi resident" signature, however, is most plausibly read against the building of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Fushimi Castle from 1594 onward, which transformed Fushimi into a vibrant artisan town. Whatever his precise dates, Kaneie is consistently credited as the founder of pictorial tsuba design, and later connoisseurs grouped him with Nobuie of Owari and Umetada Myoju of Kyoto as the three master tsuba makers of the Momoyama age.

The Kasugano-zu Tsuba is generally regarded as the most representative work of his career — a piece in which his signature aesthetic is realized with quiet authority. Even today, its rough-yet-restrained surface continues to influence how collectors and curators think about iron, image, and silence.

Why This Tsuba Was Designated an Important Cultural Property

The Kasugano-zu Tsuba is registered in the national database of designated cultural properties as a work of fine art and craft. Its value rests on three intertwined pillars.

First, it documents a turning point in Japanese metalwork history. Kaneie was the first artisan to elevate the sword guard from accessory to autonomous art object, and this tsuba is one of the clearest demonstrations of that shift. The composition is no longer a simple openwork pattern but a deliberate landscape that asks to be read like a painting.

Second, the technical execution is exceptional. The iron is well-forged, beaten thin, and finished with a hammered (tsuchime) ground that gives the surface a tactile, atmospheric quality. The scenery of Kasugano is then carved in vigorous sukidashi-takabori — high relief sculpted out of the iron itself — and accented with the sparest possible touches of gold and silver inlay. The restraint is the point: the precious metals are used not for ostentation but to lead the eye gently across the scene.

Third, the design itself is iconographically and culturally significant. By choosing Kasugano — a landscape long celebrated in classical waka poetry, painting, and Buddhist devotion — Kaneie tied the world of the warrior to the cultivated lyricism of Heian and medieval court culture. A samurai who carried a sword fitted with this guard wore, in effect, a fragment of poetry on his hip.

Highlights of the Tsuba: Reading the Iron Like a Painting

To appreciate this tsuba in person — even for a few minutes — is to discover how much expressive depth a small piece of iron can carry. Several aspects deserve particular attention.

The Subject: The Plain of Kasuga

Kasugano is the broad meadow at the foot of Mt. Mikasa and Mt. Wakakusa in the eastern part of present-day Nara, encompassing the precincts of the great Kasuga Taisha Shrine. From the Heian period onward, it was one of the most beloved poetic place names in the Japanese imagination, evoked alongside its sacred deer — the messengers of the Kasuga deity — and its springtime grasses. The image of "deer at Kasugano" was canonized as one of the Eight Views of Nanto (the southern capital, Nara). On Kaneie's tsuba, this entire poetic universe is compressed into a few centimeters of iron.

The Surface: Hammered Iron Ground

Look closely at the field around the carved imagery and you will see a softly undulating texture, achieved by careful hammer work. This is the tsuchime-ji, or hammered ground. It catches light unevenly and gives the iron an almost atmospheric softness — like an overcast sky over autumn fields — against which the carved motifs feel grounded and alive.

The Carving: Sukidashi-Takabori

The principal technique is sukidashi-takabori, in which the artisan removes iron from around the design so that the figures emerge in robust, three-dimensional relief from the body of the plate itself. Unlike applied or inlaid decoration, the imagery here is part of the iron — a fact that gives Kaneie's tsuba their singular feeling of weight and unity.

The Inlay: Whispers of Gold and Silver

Gold and silver inlay (zogan) is used with notable restraint. Just a few highlights catch the eye and lead it through the composition. This minimalism is characteristic of Kaneie and aligns with the wabi sensibility that swept through tea culture and the visual arts in the same era.

The Signature

On one face the inscription reads "Joshu Fushimi-ju Kaneie" — Joshu being a literary alternative for Yamashiro Province (the area around Kyoto). The signature is part of the work's identity: it locates the maker geographically, professionally, and artistically within the new world of Momoyama Fushimi.

Visitor Information: Seeing the Tsuba at Eisei Bunko

The Kasugano-zu Tsuba is held by the Eisei Bunko Foundation, a private museum founded in 1950 by Hosokawa Moritatsu (1883–1970), the 16th head of the Hosokawa family — former lords of the 540,000-koku Higo (Kumamoto) Domain. Eisei Bunko is the only museum in Tokyo dedicated to a single daimyo family's collection. Its building, originally constructed in 1930 as the Hosokawa family's administrative office, sits on the former site of the family's lower residence in Mejirodai.

The collection numbers about 94,000 items in total, including 8 national treasures and dozens of Important Cultural Properties — paintings, calligraphy, swords, sword fittings, tea utensils, Noh costumes, and historical documents. Items are rotated through four seasonal exhibitions per year, so the Kasugano-zu Tsuba is not always on view; visitors interested specifically in this work should check the current and upcoming exhibition schedule on the official website before traveling.

Hours and Admission

The museum is open from 10:00 to 16:30 (last entry at 16:00). It is closed on Mondays (or the following weekday when Monday is a public holiday), during exhibition change-over periods, and over the New Year. General admission is around 1,000 yen, with discounts for seniors and students. Fees vary by exhibition, so the official site is the best reference.

Getting There

Eisei Bunko is in a peaceful residential neighborhood at Mejirodai 1-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. The most convenient routes are about a 15-minute walk from Edogawabashi Station (Tokyo Metro Yurakucho Line, Exit 1a) or from Waseda Station (Tokyo Metro Tozai Line, Exit 3a). Visitors can also take a Toei bus from JR Mejiro Station bound for "Shinjuku Eki Nishiguchi" and alight at "Mejirodai Sanchome," about a 5-minute walk from the museum.

Around the Museum: Things to See Nearby

The neighborhood around Eisei Bunko is a quietly rewarding pocket of central Tokyo — full of wooded slopes and historic estates that feel a world away from the city's busier districts.

• Higo Hosokawa Garden — A traditional pond-and-stroll garden directly adjacent to Eisei Bunko, occupying part of the former Hosokawa estate. Free to enter and especially atmospheric in autumn and during early summer iris season.
• Chinzanso Garden — A famous landscape garden adjoining a luxury hotel, dotted with stone lanterns, an antique three-storied pagoda, and a charming waterfall. A favorite spot for evening firefly viewing in early summer.
• Kanda River and Sekiguchi Basho-an — A short walk away, this small thatched hut commemorates the haiku poet Matsuo Basho's residence here in the 1670s when he supervised waterworks for the Edo shogunate.
• Waseda University — The main campus of one of Japan's most famous private universities is within walking distance, with bookshops and cafes nearby.
• Zoshigaya Kishimojin Temple — Reached via the historic Toden Arakawa Line streetcar, this modestly sized temple precinct retains the feel of old Tokyo, with small shops selling traditional toys and sweets.