A JAPANESE KATANA (SWORD)

A JAPANESE KATANA (SWORD)
PROBABLY EDO, 18TH/19TH CENTURY

The mottled red lacquer scabbard with minute sprinkled aogai details, the fuchi-kashira decorated with flowers and with a grasshopper on the pommel, each menuki modelled as a prancing horse with details in gilt; the iron tsuba also embellished with a shakudo stallion under a willow tree and by a stream; the handle of the kozuka with a lobster, the blade with an inscription possibly reading Seki Kane...; the tang of the blade with mei reading as Munehira saku; the blade 62.3cm. (2)