Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch粟田口国安(無銘)の重要刀剣、『後鳥羽院番鍛冶』を務めた同派筆頭鍛冶による最上の梨子地肌、最高権威本阿弥光忠の金象嵌、鎌倉初期の感動的な名刀です。 粟田口派は、鎌倉初期、山城国に於いて三条、五条派に次いで興り、京物の名声をより一層高めた刀工群で、その流派名は、京の都と七道(東海道、東山道、北陸道、山陽道、山陰道、南海道、西海道)を結ぶ街道の入り口に設置された関所、いわゆる『京の七口』の一つとされる粟田口(現京都市東区粟田口)付近で鍛刀したことに由来しています。この地はかつて東国の各街道に通じ、軍事、交通の要衝地でもありました。 世上、『粟田口物=名刀の代名詞』であり、名だたる名工を多数輩出していますが、中々現存作を見ません。初祖は国家とされますが、現存作は皆無、その子に国友、久国、国安、国清、有国、国綱の六人兄弟がおり、鎌倉初期から前期頃に掛けて活躍しています。 この時代には、後鳥羽上皇が水無瀬離宮(摂津にあった避暑地)に西日本の名工を召集し、月番を定めて鍛刀させた、いわゆる『後鳥羽院番鍛冶』制度が行われました。打倒鎌倉幕府を掲げた上皇は、好機に備えて西面武士の整備を行う傍ら、安定的な武器生産並びに鍛刀技術向上のためにこの制度を確立、自らもその時々の番鍛冶相手に焼き入れを行いました。これがいわゆる『菊御作』です。粟田口一派からは、六人兄弟の国友、久国、国安が選出されていることも、一派の名声を更に一段と高めています。 六人兄弟末弟の国綱は、後に北条時頼の招きにより鎌倉へ移り、備前福岡一文字助真、備前三郎国宗と共に相州鍛冶の草分けとなりました。新藤五国光はその子或いは門人と云われます。 六人兄弟の次の世代は、鎌倉前期から中後期に掛けて活躍、国友の子に則国、則国の子或いは門人に国吉、国吉の子或いは門人に藤四郎吉光がいます。 同派の作全般に共通するのは、地鉄の鍛錬が特に優れている点であり、この上なく美麗な肌合いは『梨子地肌』と称されます。古伝書『解粉記(けふんき)』等によると、『鍛えはおそらく板目であるが、それと分からない程密に詰まっており、来一派の地鉄に比べて、より青み掛かって潤いがあり、清澄である。』と評しています。 焼き刃は、上品な小沸出来の直刃、直刃調に小乱れ、小丁子の交じるものを基本とし、刃縁には二重刃の加わるものなどがあります。 姿は細身で小峰、腰反り深く、先に行ってやや伏せ気味となるなど、平安末期から鎌倉初期に見られる古典的な姿を示します。 全てに於いて格調高く、清雅で洗練された作風は、今も昔も愛刀家を魅了して止みません。 本作は寸法二尺三寸一分、無銘ながら、図譜にも記載があるように、本阿弥光忠による金象嵌銘で『国安』の極めが付されています。 国安は、国家の三男で藤三郎と称し、在銘作は太刀のみ、短刀の確実な作は現存していません。前述した『後鳥羽院番鍛冶』の四月に選抜された名工中の名工、重要文化財三口、重要美術品四口(無銘極めを含めると六口)の他、無冠ながら生ぶ在銘の太刀が、東京国立博物館に所蔵されています。 太刀姿には、兄久国同様、細身で優美なものと、身幅が広めで強さを感じるものの二様があり、鍛えは、久国風に梨子地肌詰んだものと、板目がやや肌立ち大肌の交じるものがあり、地沸が良く付き地景が現れ、沸映りが立ちます。刃文は、穏やかな直刃はなく、小沸出来の直刃調に小乱れ、小丁子、小互の目を交えるのが基本で、刃中は金筋、砂流し目立ち、匂い口は潤み勝ちとなります。また乱れの間隔が詰まる傾向があり、更に焼き頭に打ちのけ風の小模様の焼き、いわゆる雁股風の刃を交える場合もあります。雁股風の刃は、後の綾小路定利や来国行の作などに特徴的に見られるものですが、既に国安にはその萌芽が見られます。 本作は地沸を微塵に厚く敷き詰めた小板目肌で、この上なく詰んで美麗な梨子地状を呈し、所々強く肌立って流れ、地景細やかに働き、ほのかに沸映り立ち、鉄色明るくやや青み掛かっています。 直湾れ調の焼き刃は、小乱れ、小丁子、小互の目を交えて乱れの間隔が詰まり、刃縁に煌めくような美しい沸が付き、刃中にはうねるような金筋掛かり、焼き頭には前述の雁股風の刃も見られます。 この寸分の隙間もなく叩き詰めたような鍛錬の見事さ、刃沸、地沸の強さと美しさは他に類を見ません。こういった作風が新藤五国光を経て相州行光に伝わり、それを正宗が更に発展させたわけですが、後に隆盛を見せる相州伝の源流は間違いなく粟田口物にあると確信します。 金象嵌銘を施した光忠は、本阿弥本家十三代当主で、折紙は元禄九年~享保十年まで残されており、同年九月没。 本阿弥本家の折紙でも、特に十三代光忠までのものは、鑑定が厳格であるため、『古折紙』又は『上折紙』と呼ばれ珍重されま
国安は粟田口六人兄弟の三番目で藤三郎と称したと伝え、現存する在銘のものは太刀ばかりである。 国安の地刃の作 風は鍛が肌立つものと、久国同様に鍛がつまるものとあり、刃文は国友と同じく匂口がうるむ点と乱れの間がつまる点等 に特色があるが、中には匂口がうるまず締りぎみのものもある。 この刀は本阿弥光忠が国安と極めて象嵌を施したもので、鍛は小板目がつまり、刃中に輝く沸がよくつき、久国に近い 方の作風を示したもので地刃の出来が優れている。
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Awataguchi (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1199-1201
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 3%
Awataguchi Kuniyasu worked at Awataguchi in Kyoto in the early Kamakura period, third of the six brothers, Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, who made the school famous, and was called Tosaburo (藤三郎). The published sources count him, with his elder brothers Kunitomo and Hisakuni, among the goban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and the sword references place his activity around the Jokyu era (1219 to 1222). His surviving signed works are tachi, comparatively numerous for so early a smith; the single signed tanto, recognized at Juyo session 31, is for that reason called "extremely precious"[[c:1]]. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku.
His blades keep the figure of their day, slender, with high koshizori and a small kissaki, the curve settling faintly toward the point; one source reads the bearing as a gentle taoyame grace. On this figure he tempers a small-patterned ko-midare in ko-nie-deki, mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome over a suguha base, with kinsuji and fine sunagashi in the ha. The intervals of the midare press close, for "many examples show the spacing of the midare drawn tight"[[c:2]], and where the small gunome run linked in series the judges go further, writing of one unsigned katana that by this linked tendency "even within the school it should be possible to specify Kuniyasu"[[c:3]]. The nioiguchi, "as with Kunitomo, characteristically clouds into urumi"[[c:4]]; yubashiri gathers above the yakigashira, where one source finds "this smith's habitual hand"[[c:5]] plainly discernible; on another blade the forked, karimata-like uchinoke at the yakigashira reveals the same characteristic features. The boshi runs sugu to a small ko-maru, at times yakizume, the tip lightly brushed with hakikake.
The jigane divides in two, and the published sources state the split outright: in his forging "there are two kinds, one with standing hada and one tightly knit"[[c:6]]. The tight register is packed ko-itame, ji-nie adhering in fine dust, slender chikei woven through, at times a faint nie-utsuri rising toward the shinogi; the surface takes on the pear-skin texture the sources call "the school's characteristic nashiji-hada"[[c:7]], and blades of this kind are read as "the manner closer to Hisakuni"[[c:8]]. The standing register shows itame with the grain raised, jifu mingled in and chikei conspicuous, and the published record ties it to his signed work: "among this smith's signed pieces those with prominently standing itame are comparatively many"[[c:9]].
The two registers sort loosely by signature: most unsigned attributions are of the refined nashiji type and travel on Hon'ami judgments, a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, a kinzogan of Hon'ami Mitsutada, an origami of Hon'ami Koyu dated Genbun 3 (1738). The scholarship is candid about his softest quality: an early text judges of the shadowed dullness that often settles in his edge that "rather than a point of appreciation it is instead a defect"[[c:10]], while later texts call the urumi "one of this smith's notable features"[[c:11]]. His two-character signature was cut both large and small, and "in either case the character An shows its distinctive features"[[c:12]], its cursive abbreviation always the same, a major point in judging his mei. Honma notes of the attributed pieces that "among the kiwame-mono there are occasionally wide ones like this sword"[[c:13]], robust blades apart from his usual slender build.
Within Awataguchi he is the midare brother. The school's later course runs through Norikuni to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu and settles into bright suguha, while Kuniyasu holds to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation and its clouded nioiguchi. His sugata follows Hisakuni, and his tightest jigane approaches that brother closely; yet the linked ko-gunome within the ha is the trait the judges name for picking him out within the school, and the pressed intervals and the urumi are the marks they say he shares with Kunitomo. Against the later generations the judgment entered on his signed tanto is direct: "compared with Norikuni and Kuniyoshi the interior of the ha works well"[[c:14]], fully showing, the same text concludes, the depth of flavor of Awataguchi work.
Twenty-three designated works stand on record: three Important Cultural Properties, all signed tachi, with five Juyo Bijutsuhin, two Tokubetsu Juyo and twelve Juyo, fourteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers together, and one signed tachi recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection; ten pieces in the record are signed against nine unsigned. Nine blades carry recorded provenance, through the Owari Tokugawa house, one a gift of the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yoshimichi, fourth lord of Owari, and through the Tsugaru, Nanbu, Matsudaira, Mizoguchi and Hosokawa families. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest with the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the NBTHK itself. The three Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they stand; fourteen blades of recorded rank sit in the tiers that may lawfully change hands, and most are held rather than traded. The published record remarks that signed tachi by Kuniyasu are encountered from time to time, and that is the honest measure of him: a goban-kaji of Go-Toba whose work a patient collector may still hope to meet, though each appearance of a Juyo example is an occasion.
Where Kuniyasu stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
2 pieces on the market now
The steel is the first thing one learns to read in Awataguchi work: a ko-itame kneaded so tight that the surface takes on the pear-skin sheen the texts name nashiji-hada, the ji-nie dusted over it fine and even, slender chikei threading through, the whole carrying a moist luster (潤い) and a clarity that recurs in notice after notice. This is the steel of the early Yamashiro tradition at its summit. The forge stood at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Kyoto, on the highway running toward Omi, and a community of smiths already worked there by the early Kamakura period; the tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari attests their presence, so this is a house with a documented place in the literature of its own century. The school is conventionally founded on the six brothers, Kunitomo the eldest, then Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, sons of the founder Kunika (also given as Kuniie). Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu were summoned as goban-kaji to forge on rotation at the cloistered court of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and Hisakuni is even transmitted as a teacher to the sovereign; that imperial patronage is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. What binds the house across four generations is restraint married to refinement. Over the nashiji-hada the brothers set a calm suguha leaning into a shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji, the nioiguchi tight and bright, ko-ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi running within the ha; the boshi turns in a refined ko-maru that very often sweeps with hakikake. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, an edge whose interest lies in the activity within rather than the height of the pattern. Within that shared vocabulary the members are told apart by habit. Kunitomo and Kuniyasu hold to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation, their nioiguchi clouding into urumi; Kuniyasu's linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school.
Kunitsuna is the divergence, a robust o-itame standing prominently over thick ji-nie, with conspicuously strong ha-nie that leans toward the Sagami manner about to be born. The later course runs through Norikuni, the bridge generation, into the tanto age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, where the temper settles into bright suguha in fine ko-nie. Kuniyoshi's tell is the nijuba, the doubled (at times trebled) line along the ha; Yoshimitsu's is the linear kuisagari dropping of nie into the ji beneath the boshi, his suguha a narrow hoso-suguha under a bright nioiguchi. For the collector the school divides into work that can be studied and work that can be owned. Its summit, Toshiro Yoshimitsu, crowns the close of the line; paired with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha, and ranked in the Edo period with Masamune and Go among the Three Great Works under Heaven, he is a smith met in the great collections rather than possessed, his signed tanto the standard against which every attribution is measured. His teacher Kuniyoshi, whose nashiji-hada the texts name outright, is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach, his o-suriage mumei katana anchored on the doubled line. The house also seeded the eastern tradition: Kunitsuna's transmitted descent runs on to Shintogo Kunimitsu, the de facto founder of Soshu, whose own refined nashiji steel passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it, and from whose quiet nie-laden suguha Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige drew the nie-midare of the mature tradition. The refined nie-suguha the brothers fixed was likewise the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, the two hands sitting so close in the eye that gold-inlaid Rai attributions appear on blades grouped with Hisakuni. To kantei an Awataguchi blade is to read the pear-skin steel first, then the quiet nie-laden suguha, then the swept boshi, and to know which brother or pupil the habits name; to acquire one, of any generation, is among the scarcest encounters early Yamashiro affords. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshimitsu吉光 | 1259-1260 | 49 |
| Kuniyoshi國吉 | 1275-1278 | 50 |
| Hisakuni久國 | 1190-1199 | 21 |
| Kunitsuna國綱 | 1240-1264 | 14 |
| Kuniyasu國安 | 1199-1201 | 23 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
A blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,348 (about 1 in 202) have ever attained Jūyō.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
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