SOLD

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Enju Kunimura國村

Kunimura is the founder of the Enjū school of Higo province, and the published sources set him within the orbit of Yamashiro Rai. According to the prevailing account he was the son of Hiromura of the Yamato Senjuin line, who married a daughter of Rai Kuniyuki, so that Kunimura is transmitted as Kuniyuki's grandson through that daughter and a pupil in the Rai workshop; the school name 延寿, Enjū, reads on the same characters as the Rai line itself. From him issued the smiths who carried the school, Kuniyoshi, Kunitoki, Kuniyasu, Kunitomo, Kunisuke, Kuninobu and Kunitsuna among them, and from the close of Kamakura through the Nanbokuchō period the family flourished at Kumafu in Kikuchi District. His own dated standing falls in the late Kamakura period, and one of his signed *tachi*, the Tokubetsu Jūyō blade of 2012, still survives *ubu* at 87.8 cm with a two-character signature cut in somewhat thick chisel strokes near the center of the tang. The published descriptions characterize the Enjū hand as the Yamashiro Rai look carried south to the provinces, and they say plainly that the school "in general resembles the Rai school" (概ね来派に類似する). What separates it is a set of provincial accents on that Kyoto manner. The forging shows "a noticeable *masame*-tinge together with conspicuous whitish *utsuri*" (鍛えに柾ごころが目立ち白け映りが立ち), the *shirake-utsuri* being the surest single Enjū tell, the cool reflection of a steel that is not quite the bright Rai *jigane*. The temper is *suguha*, either *chū-suguha* or the narrower *hoso-suguha*, with the *nioiguchi* drawn somewhat *shizumi*, sunken and quiet, frequently breaking into *nijūba*, the doubled line that recurs across his blades. The *bōshi* completes the signature: where Rai turns back in a tight *ko-maru*, the Enjū tip is rounded on a larger radius, an *ō-maru* with a shallow, short turnback. The *jigane* is a *ko-itame* well packed and close, mixed with *mokume* and running into *nagare-hada* toward the edge, with *ji-nie* laid on finely and delicate *chikei* entering; in places the grain flows strongly and leans to *masame*, and over it stands the faint whitish *utsuri* the sources keep returning to. The *suguha* is laid down in deep *nioi* with *ko-nie* adhering, *ko-ashi* and at times a small *ko-gunome* feeling entering, fine *sunagashi* drawn through it; the activity within the edge is gentle rather than busy, and the *nioiguchi* in his better work is bright and clear even where it sinks. On the Tokubetsu Jūyō *tachi* the published commentary reads this *suguha* "inherited from the Rai tradition" (来派の伝統をひいた直刃) as producing "a profound, subdued and quiet flavor" (深みのある渋い味わい), the temper restrained, the *ko-nie* calm, the whole understated rather than showy. His work survives only as *tachi*, the published record noting that "his production is confined to *tachi*" (その作刀は太刀に限られ), with no *tantō* or other forms yet seen; the long blades come down either *ubu* or *ō-suriage* into *katana*, and the surviving signed pieces are all *tachi*. Two registers can be read in the corpus. The signed *ubu-tachi* are slender, long, with a marked taper from base to tip, deep *sori* with *funbari*, and a small *kissaki*; this *細身・幅差顕著・小鋒* form the sources call "distinctive to Kunimura even within the school" (同派の中でも国村独特のもの), and it is precisely this *sugata* that lets an appraiser narrow a *mumei* Enjū blade down to Kunimura himself, as the 2019 and 2021 Jūyō commentaries do explicitly. The *ō-suriage mumei katana* form the second register, shortened from such *tachi* and attributed by the same reasoning. One Tokubetsu Jūyō *katana* even preserves the cut-off, signed tang-tip, inserted back into the shortened *nakago* as a *gaku-mei* so the signature would not be lost. The distinction the sources care about is Enjū against Rai, and they draw it from Kunimura's own traits rather than from the Rai blades. One Jūyō *katana* feels "the air of Kyoto work, of the Rai school in particular" (京物とりわけ来派の風情を感じる) in its wheel-like curvature, yet the depth and tightening of its *nioiguchi* place it with Enjū; another, grounded in Rai workmanship, is said to "reveal a Yamato temperament" (大和気質が窺われて) in its flowing *jigane* and *ō-maru bōshi*. The Jūyō Bijutsuhin commentary by Honma puts the kinship and its limit in one phrase: Enjū work "resembles Rai yet differs a little" (来に似てやや異なる), carrying some whitishness and a *masame*-air, and its *suguha* shows activity "more sparing than the *suguha* of the Rai school" (刃中の働きが来一派の直刃よりも淋しい). That quieter, cooler register is the whole point of the school, and Kunimura is the smith who sets it. In Fujishiro's grading Kunimura is *Jō-jō saku*, and the *Tōkō Taikan* values his work at one million yen, a high standing for a provincial founder. The designated record runs to one Important Cultural Property, two Tokubetsu Jūyō and eight Jūyō, ten blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, divided about evenly between signed and *ō-suriage mumei* pieces. The provenance behind them is considerable: the Important Cultural Property descends through the Kuroda family, one *tachi* through Tokugawa Iesato and the Tokugawa family, others through Nanbu Toshihide, Itō Harumasa and Yamada Fukunosuke; of recorded whereabouts, examples are held by the Hayashibara Museum of Art, the Idemitsu Art Museum and the Okayama Museum of Art. The Important Cultural Property is heritage held in trust and will not trade. The remainder, the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō blades, come to market only from time to time and with patience; a signed *ubu tachi* by the founder of Enjū is among the rarer things a collector of Higo work could hope to encounter, and most of what survives is the *ō-suriage mumei* attribution rather than the signed blade.

World Seiyudo

world-seiyudo.com