An uchidashi mask of a vengeful spirit hammer-formed from a single sheet of metal with the addition of the two horns in the style of the Myochin armor school metalworkers of the late Edo period. It is 21.5 x 16 x 7.5 cm (8-1/2 x 6-1/4 x 3 inches) and is in excellent original condition.
In the dawn of the modern age, metalworkers who had traditionally been employed in the armor industry found themselves redundant in a time of guns and uniforms. Many reinvented themselves, transferring from arms and armor supplying the samurai to art-crafts supplying a burgeoning new population of middle class and foreign collectors found in the export market. Uchidashi crafts of hand formed iron, copper, brass and silver were incredibly popular, iron, being the hardest to work with, considered at the pinnacle of this craft.
