SOLD

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Kaga Takahira高平

Etchu-no-kami Fujiwara Takahira is the later name of Kashu Kanewaka, the head of the Tsujimura line of Kaga smiths, and a katana of his dated Genna 7 (1621) is treated by the published sources not merely as a fine blade but as documentary evidence, called 'valuable material for clarifying' the long-standing questions over his court title. The line was Mino in origin: its forebears were Seki men who relocated north to Kaga and worked there under the name Kanewaka, the first generation styling himself Tsujimura Shiroemon-no-jo. Around Genna 5 (1619) this smith received the title Etchu-no-kami and signed Takahira thereafter, and the commonly accepted view identifies him with Kanewaka, though whether he was the first or the second generation of that name, and the exact circumstances of the title, remained matters the published commentary holds open for further research. What is not in question is the hand: Mino forging carried into Kaga, more vigorous than its Seki parent and unmistakably his own in the box-shaped temper the published sources single out as his. The feature that most distinguishes his work is a box-shaped, *hako-midare* element worked into the temper, which the published sources describe as a 'box-shaped, wet-looking temper' and name outright as what is most characteristic of him. It does not stand alone. His hamon is a *notare* base into which *gunome* and pointed *togariba* enter, the box-shaped heads forming where the undulations broaden and flatten, the *nioiguchi* deep with *ko-nie* and coarser *nie* gathering in places, *sunagashi* running frequently through the *ha* and *kinsuji* entering. *Ashi* and *yo* fall into the temper, and on the wider blades a faint *hotsure* frays its upper edge. The whole is a Mino temper given Kaga weight, the pointed forms of Seki softened into the rounded box that the eye learns to read as Takahira before any other tell. Beneath it the *jigane* is *itame* that runs into a flowing *nagare-hada*, the steel standing somewhat with *ji-nie* attaching and *chikei* entering, the *shinogi-ji* frequently *masame*. The flow is the Mino origin showing through the surface, and it is nearly constant across his work, on the early pieces standing more openly and on the densest late blades tightening toward a *ko-itame* with the *ji-nie* falling as fine particles. The *boshi* is mixed and characteristic of the line rather than uniform: it turns back in *ko-maru* on one face while the other runs to *hakikake* and a pointed tip, and on some blades it enters as *midare-komi* with a slight thrust before the turn. The carving is varied for a provincial shinto smith, from *futasuji-hi* and *bo-hi* to an openwork *kurikara* and a Hachiman invocation, and on one wakizashi a pair of deep relief inscriptions whose reading the published sources puzzle over. The published record draws two periods across his career. In the early Keicho years, signing Kanewaka, he made broad, *sun-nobi* blades with extended points in the Keicho-shinto stance, the *itame* mixed with *nagare* standing more, the temper a shallow *notare* laced with *gunome* and *togariba*, so that the whole 'recalls the work of old Shizu', as the sources put it. As the years fall from Genna into Kanei and the Takahira signature takes over, the proportions return toward a normal width with a wider taper and a *chu-kissaki*, the *itame* tightens, the *nioiguchi* deepens, and it is in this later manner that the box-midare becomes prominent. He worked katana, *sun-nobi hira-zukuri* wakizashi and the *ko-wakizashi* the sources note he made from time to time, and the published sources record that he 'particularly excelled at producing works with broad mihaba and slightly elongated proportions'. His long signature, cut toward the *mune* with Tsujimura Etchu-no-kami and Fujiwara arranged in two lines and Takahira and a *kao* below, is itself a habit the sources describe, as is the curious recurrence, on several blades and for reasons unclear, of the date 'third day of the third month'. Within the larger world of swordsmithing his is a school hand placed by lineage rather than by a famous teacher: the Mino-den manner worked in Kaga steel, the bridge by which the Seki tradition took root in the north. The Shizu resemblance the sources draw is the genuine one and belongs to his own early blades, where the broad sun-nobi sugata and the notare-and-togari temper genuinely echo the old Mino master; it is a resemblance of manner, not an attribution problem, and it sits beside his own box-midare rather than replacing it. His bright, deep-nioi notare with its box-shaped heads and flowing *nagare-hada* set him apart from the plainer Kaga work around him, and his dated, signed blades make him one of the more exactly knowable Kaga smiths of his generation, the succession of the Kanewaka name traceable in part through the very pieces the NBTHK designates. Seven of his blades are recorded at Juyo, all signed, spanning katana and the *sun-nobi* wakizashi in which he is most often seen, and two further *tanto* signed in full as Tsujimura Etchu-no-kami Fujiwara Takahira are held by the Imperial Family, the latter among the most distinguished provenance a smith of his rank can carry. He has no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property on this record, and his Toko Taikan standing places him in the solid middle of the shinto field rather than at its summit, which is the honest measure of him: a fine, characterful provincial master, not one of the great names. For a private collector this makes him a realistic aspiration where the first rank is not. His Juyo blades are held, as designated swords generally are, and come to market only from time to time and with patience; when one does appear, the box-shaped wet temper and the flowing Mino *jigane* declare him at a glance, and a signed, dated example of recorded whereabouts is a satisfying thing to encounter, a documented work by the smith whose own blades the NBTHK reads as the key to the Kanewaka succession.

Eirakudo

eirakudo.shop