TWO TSUBAS
EDO PERIOD AND LATER
江戶及以後 銘「藻柄子入道 宗典作」 武士圖 及  銘「壽春（花押）」 松下鬼圖 鍔（共兩件）comprising: an iron tsuba, Kitagawa Soten lineage, of rounded form with raised rim, carved and inlaid with warriors in fights on both sides, details in gold, signed ‘Sōheishi Nyūdō Sōten sei (Made by the Priest Sōheishi Sōten)’; and a brass tsuba, of rounded form, decorated with two oni sneaking under a pine tree, signed and with kao (2)
widths: 8.3cm and 7.7cm 
From the collection of Benjamin Everett Gill (1838-1901) from Aberdeen. Benjamin E Gill was a shipwright with Hall, Russell & Company. He built and sailed to Japan in 1869 on the Jho Sho Maru with Thomas Blake Glover who had commissioned the vessel. After they arrived in Nagasaki in January 1870, Thomas B Glover sold the boat to the Kumamoto Domain and that started the Japanese navy. A collection of Asian Art was brought back to Scotland by 1884 when Benjamin E Gill got married. The illustration shown Benjamin E Gill in Nagasaki in the early 1870s. The collection was passed down by direct descent to the current owner's father and mother, Michael Peter Gill (1934-2015) and Shiona Airlie (1953-2023), and subsequently grew. Michael P Gill was the head of art at George Watson's College, and Shiona Airlie, who had a lifelong love of everything Chinese, its history, culture and language, was the author of Thistle and Bamboo: The Life and Times of Sir James Stewart Lockhart (1989) and Scottish Mandarin: The Life and Times of Sir Reginald Johnston (2012). 
Compare to a set of Daishō tsuba (Hand Guards for a Long and a Short Sword), Edo period (1615-1868), late 18th/early 19th century, Kitagawa Soten lineage, sold at Bonhams New York, 14 December 2023, lot 82; Also see a tsuba with the same mark, in the British Museum, museum no. TS.211. A tsuba with a similar kao with the present brass piece, albeit different in signature, sold at Bonhams London, 6 November 2013, lot 34. The catalogue states ‘the kao is that of Nakajima Toshiharu, a student of Tanaka Kiyotoshi, who worked in Kyoto during the middle part of the 19th century, see Robert Haynes, The Index of Japanese Sword Fittings and Associated Artists, 2001, no.H10323.’