Japanese Sword Maker Sketchbook

This is the personal 150 page sketchbook of sword fittings maker Ranzan Tsuneyuki (嵐山常行). The sketchbook contains monochrome and colored pen and ink sketches as well as drawings of existing works that served the artist as model and as inspiration alike. Such sketchbooks were kept for personal use and not intended to be viewed by the public, although they were given to students for study purposes. In this sketchbook, we find the explicit request that it should be handed down to his then twenty-two-year-old pupil Aizan Yoshiyuki (愛山義行), indicating that Tsuneyuki regarded him as his successor.