Small Preview on the History of Steel Catalog

[Antonio Cejunior]

Originally Posted by josh stout

I asked about that saber because while the willow leaf blade with a medial ridge, and the four lobed guard are Ming characteristics, the sword as a whole looks distinctly 19th century. The round pommel and the style of the decorations are all 19th century. This does not detract in any way from the saber's importance as a historical artifact and a work of art, but I don't want people to be mislead by the dating. It is easier for a 19th century piece to have some earlier characteristics than it is for an earlier piece to have stylistic elements that are hundreds of years later. Is it possible the blade had its fittings replaced?
Josh

Hi Josh,

I believe there is much more out there than whatever typology we know and want to classify and put a sword into. Why would a round pommel and four lobbed would be specific of the Qing Dynasty? Just because someone wrote it is?

I won't ever dare to say I am a specialist on Chinese swords, but I guarantee I have seen many in different places and even if I had studied Chinese swords for 10 years I would never classify as a specialist.
The thing is that one of the characteristics of Chinese swords is their emergence and then back to oblivion and again reemerging into use.



Take this example. I would say you have never seen one such sword. Would it be Ming or Qing? This is surely a tricky one.

There were a couple of swords that were just bare blades, while the one you refer to was mounted and fortunately not restored.

We presented it as bare blades such as this one, number 93



or this one, number 94




Zhou had the good sense of not restoring anything except the handle of this one at my own request, because of the beautiful pommel, number 99:




I would therefore doubt that Zhou would have made any restorations.

Furthermore I am sure that very few people know that ancient jian had a tip polish that originated the yokote?



An ancient jian tip restored to its former glory.

Cheers

[josh stout]

Thank you for the detailed reply. I was not saying that Zhou made a restoration, I am wondering if one had been done sometime in the 19th c. and whether the Ming attribution was for the blade, which could be Ming, or for the whole piece, whose fittings look more 19th century. It is not just the round pommel that is usually but not necessarily 19th century; it is also the way the patterns are cut into the fittings. I freely admit I am a beginner at this, and my experience is only with the more commonly seen things. That is why I am so curious about what appears to me as Qing being labeled Ming. I would like to know what makes it Ming so I can see those characteristics in the future on other pieces. Dating by style is a very uncertain technique but the only one available for many pieces. I need every clue I can get.
Thanks,
Josh

[Antonio Cejunior]

Originally Posted by josh stout

Thank you for the detailed reply. I was not saying that Zhou made a restoration, I am wondering if one had been done sometime in the 19th c. and whether the Ming attribution was for the blade, which could be Ming, or for the whole piece, whose fittings look more 19th century. It is not just the round pommel that is usually but not necessarily 19th century; it is also the way the patterns are cut into the fittings. I freely admit I am a beginner at this, and my experience is only with the more commonly seen things. That is why I am so curious about what appears to me as Qing being labeled Ming. I would like to know what makes it Ming so I can see those characteristics in the future on other pieces. Dating by style is a very uncertain technique but the only one available for many pieces. I need every clue I can get.
Thanks,
Josh

You're welcome
I have no clue if those fittings were added at a later stage. The sword was classified as Ming, so we went with what was on Zhou's own Museum. To my Chinese culture experience, things are often repeated as I said before.
Chinese Song painters imitated Tang masters, Ming artists imitated Song Masters and so forth. We see the same confucianist inspired approach in Japan, in that there are only 5 sword schools until today, so it is very difficult to define when a pattern really appeared but it can suddenly sprout to fashion .
An example is the fact that Tang Dynasty women



and their headress and clothes with a cut and a ribbon like Josephine would wear many centuries later



Have definitely influenced Korean national dress and as the ribbon got wider and wider, it gave birth to the Kimono.

This is what makes history and swords so interesting as one can extrapolate into other areas.
Sorry about my rants, but I love this kind of connections.

[josh stout]

Absolutely, stylistic anachronisms are common and a source of much interest. One of my favorite areas of study is the connection between Tibetan and Chinese swords. The Tibetan swords maintained the Tang dynasty style blade that early Japanese blades were based on. There are many examples of styles appearing hundreds of years from when they were most common. There is a whole class of usually short jian with iron fittings that are in a Ming style but which may be late nineteenth century. I have not talked with anyone who can definitively tell when they were made. In my own collection I have a Yi minority chopper that looks exactly like the Song dynasty shoudao that are depicted in Thomas Chen's website. I am fairly certain my chopper was made between 1920 and 1950.

One of my great hopes is that the carbon dating techniques being developed for steel will find their way to museums so that we can finally have some definitive dates.

(http://radiocarbon.library.arizona.e...pplication/pdf)

Josh

[Mark]

Antonio,

Why is it that just the tip was polished? It's a beautiful effect, but seems sort of curious. I don't know if this one is typical, but it also seems to be a "deeper" polish than the lighter polish Zhou described, which is intended to look like clouds (as opposed to moving water, I suppose).

[Andrew]

Mark, I think we're seeing an artifact of the lighting and angle. The way the sword was photographed looks like it highlights the tip, rather than the blade. A slight adjustment would likely blurr the tip and bring the blade polish into focus.

[Mark]

Ah. So its the fact that it has that facetted tip geometry, not that the tip is polished differently from the rest of the blade.

[Antonio Cejunior]

Originally Posted by Mark

Antonio,

Why is it that just the tip was polished? It's a beautiful effect, but seems sort of curious. I don't know if this one is typical, but it also seems to be a "deeper" polish than the lighter polish Zhou described, which is intended to look like clouds (as opposed to moving water, I suppose).

Mark,

It was polished differently from the Chinese traditional way, but there was a change in geometry as you say below. I purposedly focused the tip and my own shadow darkened the lower part of the blade, so Andrew is right.

This would give birth to the so called yokote in the Japanese blade.
In the Jomon period chokuto both from China and Korea (ring pommel swords) were used mainly for stabbing, hence the ring to use the hand for pressing/pushing.

Many people think of Katana just for cutting, forgetting the stabbing purpose.

[~Alaung_Hpaya~]

Hi ,

Feedback to say that my wife has phoned me to say that the catalogue from Macau has arrived !

So all seems to be in order re purchasing from the link recommended.


Can't wait to open the packet .


Thanks everyone

[Antonio Cejunior]

Originally Posted by josh stout

Absolutely, stylistic anachronisms are common and a source of much interest. One of my favorite areas of study is the connection between Tibetan and Chinese swords. The Tibetan swords maintained the Tang dynasty style blade that early Japanese blades were based on. There are many examples of styles appearing hundreds of years from when they were most common. There is a whole class of usually short jian with iron fittings that are in a Ming style but which may be late nineteenth century. I have not talked with anyone who can definitively tell when they were made. In my own collection I have a Yi minority chopper that looks exactly like the Song dynasty shoudao that are depicted in Thomas Chen's website. I am fairly certain my chopper was made between 1920 and 1950.

One of my great hopes is that the carbon dating techniques being developed for steel will find their way to museums so that we can finally have some definitive dates.

(http://radiocarbon.library.arizona.e...pplication/pdf)

Josh

Hi Josh,

We are in total agreement.
I'm totally alien to Tibetan blades so I'm not the right person to ask.
So far I understand that the Silk Road played an important part on the connection, but not necessarily exclusive.
We once thought about the Met in NY for collaboration but the Weapons curator was busy with an exhibition on Tibetan swords. You should check out about it.