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Aoe Tsunetsugu恒次

Tsunetsugu is one of the representative smiths of the Ko-Aoe school of Bitchu, the older Aoe that forged along the lower Takahashi river in a province the records praise for its swords from the close of the Heian period. The published sources name him plainly: "Tsunetsugu is a representative smith of Ko-Aoe" (恒次は古青江の代表工), held by one tradition to be the son of Moritsugu and the younger brother of Sadatsugu, and counted, the same commentary writes, "together with Sadatsugu and Tsugiie among the ban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba" (貞次・次家と共に後鳥羽院番鍛冶に数えられている). The name is not that of a single hand. Judging from the manner of signing, the NBTHK reckons there were "two or three of the same name within Ko-Aoe" (古青江にも二、三の同名), and elsewhere that "several smiths worked through the Kamakura period" (鎌倉期を通じて数工) under it, so the published record treats Tsunetsugu as a representative name carried as a mainstay of the Aoe forge from the opening of Kamakura down into the Nanbokucho, rather than as one biography. Among the Tsunetsugu-name *meibutsu* stands the Juzumaru, one of the Tenka-Goken, famous as the protective *tachi* of the priest Nichiren, and the published commentary notes that this raises the name higher still. His is the calmest *suguha* of the early Aoe hands. The signed *tachi* read on one consistent manner: a *suguha*-based *ha* that the published sources describe as "a suguha tone running shallow with a moist tendency" (直刃調に浅く濡れごころ), faintly undulating, with *ko-midare* and at times *ko-choji* mixed in. *Ashi* and *yo* run into it constantly, and the *nie* is strong and well laid, with *sunagashi* sweeping through and *kinsuji* appearing in places. The *boshi* answers the temper, going straight and turning back in a small *ko-maru*. It is a quiet, even temper, the least flamboyant of the Aoe quartet, and its discipline is the first thing that marks his hand: where the Aoe brethren let the *midare* run, his stays close to the line, the activity carried inside it as *ashi*, *yo* and the occasional *ko-choji* rather than along its crest. The *jigane* is the Bitchu steel, and the published record dwells on it: of one signed *tachi* the NBTHK writes that, the activity within the *ha* aside, "the jigane in particular is splendid" (特に地がねが見事である). It is a *ko-itame* that stands a little, mixed with *mokume*, working up to the crepe-like surface the sources call *chirimen* (the same *tachi* is recorded as "showing a chirimen tendency", 縮緬風を呈し). Fine *ji-nie* gathers across it and *chikei* enter. On many blades the iron is broken by *jifu* and the clear patches the school knew as *sumihada*, and a faint *utsuri* rises in it, on the *o-suriage* pieces a *nie-utsuri* and, on the broader late work, *utsuri* standing in streaks toward the *shinogi*. A reverse tendency surfaces on a minority of blades, *saka-ashi* and even *saka-choji* mixed on the *ura*, a within-school tell that runs quieter in him than in his Aoe brethren. The whole is the speckled, deeply flavored *jigane* the NBTHK calls Aoe character, "quiet in tone, yet possessed of deep interest and savor" (地味ながら味わいの深い同派の作風). The work falls into two registers that the published descriptions keep distinct. The first is the signed core: comparatively small *ubu* or lightly shortened *tachi* in *shinogi-zukuri* with *koshizori* and a *ko-kissaki*, carrying a thick-chiseled two-character signature, the chisel-work so heavy the NBTHK calls strokes of this boldness rare. The placement is itself a kantei point, for the published commentary records that the signature falls now on the *haki-omote*, now on the *haki-ura*, and observes by way of reference that within Ko-Aoe the line descending from Masatsune signs *tachi-mei* on the front while the Sadatsugu group cuts to the back. The second register is the *o-suriage mumei* and *shu-mei* work attributed to the name, read as later Tsunetsugu: a *katana* bearing a red-lacquer "Aoe Tsunetsugu" attribution beside a Kanbun-era Hon'ami Kotsune *origami*, and the two unsigned *Juyo Bijutsuhin* blades, one judged late Kamakura, one Nanbokucho Aoe, which mark the later end of the line. Against this the NBTHK is candid that the multiplicity of hands leaves questions: of one signed *tachi* it allows that there is "some doubt regarding the inscription, leaving room for further study". The published sources are equally careful to keep him apart from his homonyms. The same commentary that praises his *jigane* notes that "the name is found among the Ko-Bizen group as well" (古備前派に同名があり), both reckoned skilled, and the appraisal of the Ko-Aoe pieces is steadied by their own evidence rather than by the name alone: the *o-sujikai* file marks the NBTHK calls the prescribed Aoe convention, the bold thick-chiseled two characters, the speckled *jifu* and *sumihada* in the *ji*, and the disciplined *suguha* with its reverse-tending *ashi*. His tachi are placed against the wider Aoe field by these grounded marks, not by contrast with another school: the calm of his temper, the crepe-like Bitchu *jigane* and the bold signature set his Ko-Aoe work apart, and the records read the same hand across the early Kamakura to Nanbokucho span the name covers. Fujishiro grades Tsunetsugu *Jo-jo saku*, and the Toko Taikan values his work among the upper rank of the early Aoe names. The designations behind the name sit high: one of his *tachi* is Tokubetsu Juyo, with seven at Juyo, three Important Cultural Properties, and two prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin among the unsigned work. No blade under the code is a National Treasure, so the patrimony preserved in trust is the three Important Cultural Properties, while the tradeable standing rests on that Tokubetsu Juyo and the Juyo tier. The provenance roll is notable for so old a name: blades carry histories through the Kishu Tokugawa family, the Uesugi family, the Tsuchiya family, the Arima family, and the Imperial Family down to the Emperor Meiji, and the Hon'ami Kotsune *origami* of Kanbun 8 fixes the *shu-mei* katana's appraisal in the seventeenth century. Of recorded whereabouts a handful are held in public institutions and a shrine, with others in long-private hands. A signed Ko-Aoe Tsunetsugu reaches the market only rarely; when one of the Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo blades does appear it is a landmark for the collector of the older Bitchu schools, encountered with patience rather than sought, and the Juzumaru itself, a designated cultural property held in trust, is never among them.

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