Pear-Skin Mother-of-Pearl Inlay Gold-Lacquered Sword

One Ceremonial Sword, National Treasure since 1962

Pear-Skin Mother-of-Pearl Inlay Gold-Lacquered Sword (梨地螺鈿金荘餝劔, Nashiji Raden Kinso Kazaritachi) is a Heian-period craft object at the Tokyo National Museum, 13-9 Ueno Park, Taito Ward, Tokyo, made an Important Cultural Property on 29 March 1952 and designated a National Treasure on 21 June 1962. The quantity is one sword and the owner the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage.

29 March 1952 is the day on which the tachi inscribed Masatsune was designated a National Treasure. 21 June 1962 is the day of the Nezame Monogatari scrolls.

The Agency's commentary reads: a work of the Heian period. This is the twentieth one-sentence commentary among the properties covered here.

The Title Uses Variant Characters

The name of this piece is written with unfamiliar characters.

Two of them are older variants: one of the character meaning to ornament, the other of the character for sword. Same sound and same sense, written in another form.

A related entry is titled with the same words but the ordinary form of the character for ornament. The two variants stand side by side.

Accounts elsewhere use the modern forms of both characters. So the same title exists in three spellings.

How titles are written has come up repeatedly here. The sword inscriptions marked illegibility with a phrase or with squares; the sutra's note ended with a word meaning and so forth. Those concern what is not written. This concerns having several characters for one word.

This article follows the Agency's record.

A Property Differing Only in Its First Three Characters

Two titles here are nearly identical.

This piece is a mother-of-pearl and gold-mounted sword on a pear-skin ground. A related entry is a mother-of-pearl and gold-mounted sword on a poured-gold ground.

Five characters in the middle are shared, and the last is the same. Only the first three differ.

Both name lacquer techniques, distinguished by how the gold powder is laid. The head of the title states the technique, and that alone separates the two.

At Himeji Castle, a turret of one name stood as both National Treasure and Important Cultural Property. With the tachi inscribed Masatsune, several swords shared a signature. Here the distinction rests on the name of a technique.

What Is Not in the Record

The record is short, and what it omits is worth setting down.

The dimensions field is empty, as are the fields for maker, for form and condition, and for date.

Heian period, one sword, owned by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage: that is all the record establishes.

For the Mikazuki Munechika, the temper line, the shape of the tang, the number of peg holes and the placing of the signature were all set down. Within one category, the amount recorded varies widely.

Accounts elsewhere assign the piece to the twelfth century. The Agency gives only the Heian period, without a century, and this article does not add one.

Seeing It

The sword is at the Tokyo National Museum, owned by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage. It is a museum holding, not kept on permanent display.

The title itself tells something. A pear-skin ground is lacquer strewn with gold powder to resemble the skin of a pear; mother-of-pearl inlay sets pieces of shell into the surface; gold mounting means fittings of gold.

Three techniques are named in a row. Where each was used, and how, the record does not say.

The last character names a sword, but the title also carries the word for ornament. This was a sword for display rather than for use.

Exhibition plans can change, so check the museum's information before travelling.