Toshitsune is a smith of the Masatsune line, working at the close of the period and into the early , and the published sources transmit him as a disciple of Masatsune, in one account a son of Mitsutsune. A signed of his, designated an Important Cultural Property, survives at the Kyoto National Museum, and three more signed were named Important Art Objects in the prewar designations. He is, for an old- name, comparatively well recorded: signed pieces survive in notable number alongside a body of shortened, unsigned blades attributed to him on workmanship, so that the in fact lists three smiths who carried the name across the Shogen, Bunryaku and Kencho eras. His standing is fixed by the lineage he extends. The judges write that both his signature and his work make the relationship with the school's founder readily plausible, finding his blades to 'support the relationship with Masatsune'.
The core of his hand is a -based , the calm old- temper the published sources read as recalling Masatsune. Into a shallow, small irregular line he mixes , and small , with and entering well, adhering, and frequent and running through the edge. On one of his finest signed the published sources single out the and that entwine the small at the base as splendid. The runs straight into a small round, at times finishing with a tendency and . The shape beneath it is the old- bearing: at base slender, the high with , the curve settling into a .
The is the constant. He forges an , in places a tighter and in places standing a little, with and frequent ; over it a rises, clearing on his best pieces into a distinct , the speckled reflection of old steel. The published sources note that where the gathers strongly the is the less conspicuous, so the reflection comes and goes with the steel rather than standing uniform. On the latest of his the judges describe an mixed with and tending to stand, thick and frequent , with the emerging clearly and the bright, and conclude that the blade 'fully manifests the distinctive qualities and virtues of '.
What the published sources name as Toshitsune's own tell, though, is . Distinct from Masatsune, many of his blades, signed and shortened alike, are broad in and dignified in construction, the at times compact toward , and over them the activity within the is a step more florid: the small opens into and a , enters the standing , and on one gathers in the upper half into . The Jubun at Kyoto and several signed examples carve , while one bears devotional at the base, with and with . The judges record three smiths of the name in the , which accounts for the variation in both signature and emphasis, and treat the spread as one tradition rather than two manners. The signed , the published sources observe, include some whose edge is, like Masatsune, slightly subdued, and others somewhat more brilliant and florid, 'but in every case the is rounded'.
That rounded , with the well-ordered , is exactly the thread by which the judges keep him within the line even on his broadest, most florid work. Reviewing his wide, dignified , they grant that the construction is broader and the more flamboyant than Masatsune's, yet add that the refined and the rounded let one perceive the continuation of Masatsune's style. They affirm such blades from era and school, naming the imposing construction, 'a wide blade with a dignified presence', as one of Toshitsune's distinctive traits. His work 'well displays the characteristic features of the Masatsune group', the verdict that recurs across his entries. He stands among the old- hands at the threshold before the flowering of the Fukuoka , his most decorative pieces reaching a but never the full clove-flower of the mid-.
For the collector he is one of the more attainable of the old- names, which for a late- to early- smith is a relative thing. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo , and his Toko Taikan valuation places him among the higher-ranked old- hands. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through a single Important Cultural Property, three prewar Important Art Objects, and seventeen blades in the and tiers, of which only a part can ever change hands. The Important Cultural Property is held at the Kyoto National Museum, and others are preserved in long-standing institutional collections, the Sano Art Museum and the Mori Shusui Museum of Art among them; among the recorded provenances are the Suwa family, whose descends with a fine - bearing the Suwa crest, and the prewar collectors Ide Tokuichi, Otomo Tsunetaro and Yamauchi Toyokage. One signed crossed to the United States in the celebrated Compton collection. A signed, unshortened Toshitsune comes to light only from time to time, and a privately held example is a document of how forged at its beginnings, the calm root from which its most brilliant traditions would grow.
