SOLD

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Osafune Shigezane重眞

Shigezane is an Osafune swordsmith of the Motoshige line, working from the close of the Kamakura period into the Nanbokucho, whose earliest dated work is a slightly elongated *tanto* of Karyaku 2 (1327) and whose latest reaches Enbun 4 of the Nanbokucho, a documented span of thirty-three years. The published sources record him by old tradition as the younger brother, or in another account a pupil, of the first-generation Motoshige, and they place his hand squarely within the *Soden-Bizen* of the late Osafune workshop. His is not the brilliant clove-flower of the older Bizen; it is the quieter, more angular manner of the Motoshige group, read by the published commentary as close to Motoshige with the character of Aoe mixed in. Authenticated signed examples are exceedingly few, so much of what survives under his name is judged from the bearing of the blade and the structure of its temper rather than from a signature. The feature that most distinguishes his work is the temper. Over a *suguha*-toned base he sets angular *gunome*, the squared shoulder that reads as Motoshige-line rather than the rounded clove of Fukuoka, joined by the *kataochi-gunome* that is the structural tell of the group, the asymmetric saw-tooth slanting toward the base. The line frequently leans *saka-gakari*, the elements inclining in reverse, and into it run *ashi* and *yo* with *ko-nie* gathering and fine *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* passing through. The *nioiguchi* tends to sink to a subdued *shizumi*, the calm, slightly dimmed temper that the published sources name again and again as the mark of the Motoshige hand. The *boshi* enters in *midare-komi* and turns back pointed, at times a *ko-maru* or a *yakizume* sweep. The *jigane* keeps the attribution in Bizen even where the temper alone might read as *Soden*. He forges a standing *itame*, often run through with *nagare-hada* and mixed with *mokume* and patches of *jifu*, the *ji-nie* thick and *chikei* entering, the grain a little raised. Across it rises a clear *midare-utsuri*, the bright reflection of old Bizen steel, sometimes a fainter *bo-utsuri* along the edge. The steel on his finest pieces takes a bluish-black tonality with a cold clarity, the *nioiguchi* bright and the activity within the *ha* abundant, with places where coarse *nie* glitters strongly. His record divides into three registers. The mainstream is the *suguha*-toned, angular-*gunome* work that the published sources read as close to Motoshige, the manner that anchors his many *o-suriage* *mumei* attributions. Against it stands a rare exception, the *ubu* signed *tachi* dated Enbun 3, of which the commentary remarks that the workmanship 'is not in a Motoshige-like manner' (作風は元重風ではなく), opening instead into a frank *choji-midare* with pointed *gunome* at the *monouchi*. The third register is the body of his surviving work, the greatly shortened *mumei* katana, several originally large *tachi* exceeding three *shaku*, wide in body and shallow in *sori* in the Nanbokucho mode. As with Motoshige, the published sources propose a first and a second generation across his dated span, the bold two-character signature taken for the first and the smaller signature cut 'Saemon-no-jo Shigezane' (左兵衛尉重真) for the second, a question still left for further study. What sets him apart within the late Osafune is exactly what the judges name. His angular *gunome* and *kataochi-gunome*, his *saka-gakari* temper and subdued *nioiguchi*, and the bright *midare-utsuri* over his standing *itame* place him with Motoshige and apart from the rounder, showier Bizen of Fukuoka and Yoshioka, while the published sources read into his forging a manner that incorporates the character of Aoe, the workmanship they call 'a hand with Aoe character mixed in' (青江気質を混在させた出来口). On a *mumei* katana judged to him the commentary allows that views of 'Unrui or Chikakage' (雲類、近景) are possible, the panel narrowing it to Shigezane only on close reading of the whole *taihai* together with the detail of *ji* and *ha*, the clear *midare-utsuri* leaving no doubt of Bizen. For the collector Shigezane is a scarce signed name. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and his record runs not through National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties, of which he has none, but through a single Tokubetsu Juyo and many Juyo, forty-five blades across the two tiers. The value of his best pieces lies in their documentary weight: the Tokubetsu Juyo katana with its folded-back long signature, called 'a representative work of this smith' (同工の代表作); the Karyaku 2 *tanto*, the earliest of his dated works and a foothold for his study; and a *naginata* preserved in its original form, 'a precious example that survives as a naginata without having been reshaped into a sword' (薙刀のままで現存した貴重な作). Of recorded whereabouts a few are held in public collections, among them the Hayashibara Museum of Art and the Bizen Osafune Sword Museum, and the denrai of his blades passes through daimyo and old houses, the Matsudaira family with Matsudaira Ukon-no-suke Terusada and the Takasaki domain, and the Niwa family on to Tokugawa Yoshinobu. A signed Shigezane comes to light only seldom, and a privately held example, especially an *ubu* or dated one, is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of how the Motoshige hand carried Bizen into the Nanbokucho.

Samurai Museum

samuraimuseum.jp