¥15,500,000

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About the maker

Mishina Kinmichi金道

Shodai Iga no Kami Kinmichi was the eldest of the four sons of Kanemichi of Mino-Seki, and with his father and his three younger brothers, Izumi no Kami (Rai) Kinmichi, Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi and Etchu no Kami Masatoshi, he came up to Kyoto and settled at Nishinotoin Ebisugawa, where the published sources record that he 'greatly raised the name of the Mishina school' (三品派の名を大いに高めた). He stands as the founding hand of the Mishina, or Sanpin, line of Kyoto Shinto, head of the so-called Kyo go-kaji, the five Kyoto smiths, and the Jubi commentary on his shortened tachi names him a master smith of Japan, one who 'was active as a Nihon kaji sosho' (日本鍛冶宗匠として活躍). From the second generation the house held a hereditary right to recommend smiths to the court for their titles, and added that by-line to its signatures. The name continued under the same appellation to the end of the Edo period, but the published record holds the first generation the most outstanding of the line. His work is read across his court title, and that division is the spine of his kantei. Before he received the Iga no Kami rank, around the Tensho years, the published sources call his manner essentially that of late Mino: 'his workmanship at this stage is the very thing of Sue-Seki' (その作域は末関そのもの), a somewhat whitish forging carrying pointed gunome, or else gunome-choji and notare, the nioiguchi tending to tighten with small nie, and the so-called Mishina boshi not yet formed. Several signed blades of this phase stay close to the home style of the four brothers, a gunome-choji akin to that of Kanesada and Ujifusa, a small notare mixed with gunome that recalls the Muromachi uchigatana; the judges read him as the brother who carried the Mino inheritance most faithfully. After he received his title his manner is renewed, and here lies the body of his recognized record. The published sources describe how 'his range was renewed into a Shizu manner' (作域は一新して志津風), the mode in which he most excelled. Over an itame mixed with mokume and a strong flowing nagare-hada toward the mune, the grain standing, fine ji-nie adheres thickly and chikei enter well. The temper is a large midare built on a small notare, mixing o-gunome, angular elements and pointed teeth; the nie is strong and at times coarse, gathering unevenly; vigorous sunagashi runs through it, long kinsuji enter, and yubashiri and small tobiyaki cross the edge, the nioiguchi tending to sink. It is a hand of Soshu and Shizu activity grafted onto a Mino root, and the swordbooks note he was accomplished across the Shizu, Seki, Yamato and Soshu traditions alike. The jigane is the constant beneath both phases. An itame that flows into nagare-hada toward the mune, the grain standing, with thick fine ji-nie and frequent chikei, carries the Mino-Seki inheritance through into the Kyoto work; on the finest blades a mizukage rises from just above the hamachi. Over it the late temper is restless rather than calm, the nie clustering unevenly and breaking down in places, the sunagashi often forming striping with the kinsuji. The boshi is the clearest single tell: a notare or midare run-in, the tip pointed with vigorous hakikake, the Mishina boshi that is explicitly absent from the early phase and manifest in the late. Around the middle of his Shizu-mode blades the strong nie gathers until the temper takes on a basket-weave aspect, the budding of sudareba, and it is this seed that would define the Mishina school under his successors. What sets him apart is exactly what the judges name. He is held apart from his native Mino past by the strength of the nie, the kinsuji and sunagashi, and the emergent sudareba and Mishina boshi that the early Sue-Seki work lacks; and the Shizu manner that is his prime was a specialty he shared with his youngest brother, Etchu no Kami Masatoshi, some of his blades reading as if copied from o-suriage mumei Shizu. His signatures come as a three-character Kinmichi-saku, a five-character mei, and a Fujiwara-prefixed seven-character form, with dated examples rare, so the manner of the signature joins the workmanship in placing a blade within his line. He is the root from which the Mishina school grew into one of the great houses of Kyoto Shinto. For the collector he is a foundational Shinto name. Fujishiro grades the first generation Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin and the modern tiers, with four blades raised to Tokubetsu Juyo and eighteen to Juyo, the published sources calling his finest the masterpiece and 'the finest example of shodai Kanemichi' (初代金道の白眉), a blade brimming with commanding spirit and sound in both ji and ha. Provenance on record is sparse but real: one Tokubetsu Juyo katana was among the cherished swords of Tani Tateki, and the Juyo Bijutsuhin blade passed through the Satake family. Roughly two dozen of his blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, of which only a small number trade, so a signed first-generation Iga no Kami Kinmichi comes to light only from time to time, and with patience one may be encountered: a document of how the Mishina school began.

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