This small elegant dagger was made in the final days of the Tokugawa shoguns of Japan (1603-1868). The dagger is inscribed ‘a day in the fifth month of the fourth year of the Keio period’, which is equivalent to 1868. The emperor was restored to power in the ninth month of 1868. The smith, Shimizu Hisayoshi, died in 1868 so this dagger may well have been one of his last creations. One final point of interest is that, instead of using the character for the number ‘4’ to record the fact that it was the fourth year of Keio, the smith carved on the hilt of the dagger the Japanese character for the number ‘2’ twice. This is because the word for ‘4’ in Japanese sounds like the word for ‘death’ and its use is best avoided wherever possible.

The dagger is mounted in a wooden scabbard overlaid with copper sheet that has been stamped with a design of maple leaves. The fittings of the scabbard are of polished black horn and shibuichi (an alloy of silver and copper) encrusted with gold and silver depicting an egret in a stream. Other mounts are of silver and depict waves with gold drops of spray. The hilt is of rayskin, also with a design of maple leaves.