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Nobukuni信國

On a wakizashi dated the eighth month of Ōei 20 (1413), once held in the Ōshimazu family of Satsuma and now ranked Tokubetsu-Jūyō, the signature reads Minamoto Saemon-no-jō Nobukuni, and within the character kuni the interior is cut in reverse, the left-form by which this hand is known. This is the Ōei Nobukuni, the early-Muromachi generation of the distinguished Kyoto Nobukuni house, conventionally counted as the third generation and represented above all by two named smiths, Minamoto Saemon-no-jō Nobukuni and Shikibu-no-jō Nobukuni. Because both inscribed Ōei dates, the published sources record that the pair are admired together as the Ōei Nobukuni. The house descends from Ryōkai, and tradition holds that its first generation studied under Sōshū Sadamune and is counted among the Sadamune Santetsu; the Ōei smiths carry both inheritances at once, the refinement of Kyoto and the nie of Sōshū. The published commentary opens its account plainly, that "Nobukuni was a distinguished Kyoto lineage of swordsmiths" (信国は京鍛冶の名門で) which flourished from the Nanbokuchō period through the Muromachi. The most consistent feature of the Ōei Nobukuni is not a single temper but the carving, and the published sources name it as such, that both Saemon-no-jō and Shikibu-no-jō are particularly adept at dense and powerful horimono. Bonji and flaming bonji, a kurikara worked in relief or in openwork within a hitsu, sankō-ken and suken, hata-hoko, lotus pedestals, and sacred invocations such as Hachiman Daibosatsu cut into the groove appear again and again, layered and superimposed, and the commentary repeatedly judges them splendid. The signature is the second tell. Saemon-no-jō is read in part by the reversed interior of the character kuni, a point the published record calls a major matter of connoisseurship, that "within the enclosing element of the character kuni the interior is formed as the character left" (国」の字のクニ構えの中が左字になっている); the feature is traced from late Nanbokuchō, the Shitoku and Meitoku eras, and is common in Ōei. The family name is Minamoto, so the smith often called Genzaemon-no-jō is properly Minamoto Saemon-no-jō. Beneath both manners lies one jigane. It is an itame mixed with mokume that flows toward the edge into masame, standing a little, with thick ji-nie and frequent chikei; where the forging tightens it becomes a ko-itame, and on one wakizashi a faint bō-utsuri and ji-madara gather near the ha. Over that jigane the temper divides in two. The first is a suguha that keeps the fundamental Kyoto tradition, narrow to medium, bright in nioiguchi, with ko-ashi and yō entering, ko-nie adhering, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through, the edge showing hotsure in places, the bōshi straight to a ko-maru with a touch of hakikake. The published sources prize this straight temper as uncommon among Nobukuni of the period, and draw a careful comparison, that "Ōei Bizen too favours and frequently tempers suguha, yet Nobukuni seems to show the stronger nie" (応永備前も直刃の作を好んで焼くがや). The second manner is the nie-laden gunome-midare that carries the Sadamune inheritance forward. Across the line, the published record explains, two principal tempers descend, "a suguha expressing the Kyoto tradition and a notare inheriting the Sadamune manner" (京物の伝統を示した直刃と貞宗風を受け継い); and it notes that from the late Nanbokuchō succession into the Ōei generation one can newly observe a further working range, that "a midare-ba dominated by gunome can now be seen" (互の目主調の乱れ刃の作域を新たに見ることが). On these blades the gunome mixes with ko-notare and pointed togariba, at times an angular gunome and a yahazu-like element, ashi and yō entering, ko-nie well adhered, sunagashi and kinsuji throughout, and here and there tobiyaki and yubashiri; the bōshi enters midare-komi and finishes in a ko-maru or pointed return, at times yakizume. Most surviving works are tantō and wakizashi, slightly extended in proportion, with a few signed and dated tachi the sources call extremely rare and precious, valued for their soundness and for the rarity of a signed Nobukuni tachi. What sets the Ōei Nobukuni apart is the meeting of these two inheritances in one Kyoto hand. The first generation, the published commentary records, was a pupil of Sōshū Sadamune whose "workmanship displays a style that approaches that of his master Sadamune" (殆んど師貞宗に迫る作風); the Ōei smiths keep the Sōshū strength in their gunome-midare while holding to the bright Yamashiro suguha and the refined carving of the capital. His bright nioiguchi and lively activity, his standing itame with masame toward the edge, and above all his layered devotional horimono distinguish him from the plainer utilitarian grooving of the Bizen smiths of his own day. The relationship of the two named smiths is left open: by tradition Saemon-no-jō is the elder and Shikibu-no-jō the younger brother, but the published sources note that read strictly the dated works unsettle the order, so the question is held over for future study. For the collector the Ōei Nobukuni is a name of substance whose record is firmly held. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku, and the Tōkō Taikan values him among the higher koto Kyoto smiths. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through two Important Cultural Properties, among them a Shikibu-no-jō wakizashi dedicated to the Fuji shrine and preserved at Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, together with one Tokubetsu-Jūyō and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, and a pair of pieces in the Imperial Collection. His blades are preserved in shrines, museums and long-held collections grounded in their own provenance, the wakizashi from the Ōshimazu of Satsuma, a Jūyō Bijutsuhin tachi once held by Tokugawa Munetaka, and works recorded at Atsuta Jingū, Ise Jingū, the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Mitsui Memorial Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. Only a small number of his blades fall in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, so a signed Ōei Nobukuni comes to market only from time to time, and most that survive are tantō and wakizashi rather than the rare signed tachi. A privately held example, sound in condition and carrying his dense carving and bright suguha or his nie-rich gunome-midare, is a rewarding thing for a collector to encounter, and a document of how the Kyoto Sadamune line was carried into the Muromachi.

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