The Japanese sword has long been appreciated both as a weapon and as an object of art. No culture, besides the Japanese, has developed the sword to such a level of technological excellence, or raised it to such a position of spiritual importance. As a cutting weapon, the fully developed curved sword[...]
This two-part volume introduces 161 examples of metalwork, from monumental bronzes more than two metres high and outsize iron salvers overlaid with gold to tiny ornaments in silver and the patinated bronze allowys known as shaukdo and shibuchi. In the early Meiji period the prohibition of sword-wear[...]