NihontoWatchNihontoWatch白狼山の戦いで河北(黄河の北岸地域)を平定した曹操は、中原地方(黄河流域を中心とする北方地域)に強大な力を示し、さらに中国全土を目指して南下の動きを強めていた。南の揚州には三代に亘って信頼を築いている孫権がいることから、劉備と、その遠縁に当たる荊州の劉表や益州の劉璋は、これら周囲の動きに敏感にならざるを得ない状況であった。 その頃、劉備は荊州の劉表の軍門に客分としてあり、新野城を居城としていた。荊州は軍事的な要衝であり、曹操もまた狙いを定めている地。 この時期、関羽や張飛といった武勇の志士や集まり来た多くの兵を手にしながらも、漢王朝再興を願う劉備には曹操と戦う良策が見出せない状況であった。そこで劉備は自らの頭脳となる軍師が必要であると考え、司馬徽と徐庶を介して隆中の山裾に隠れ棲む諸葛孔明を知ることとなる。 この折、劉備が孔明を三度訪ねた末に軍師として迎えたことは『三顧の礼』でも良く知られており、装剣小道具では、関羽と張飛を従えた劉備が、凍て付くような雪の中に佇み、じっと孔明を待つ図とされている。 一方、孔明もまた、自らの策を実現し得る力を持ってしかも信頼できる武人を探し求めていた。両者の出会いは偶然ではなかった。自らの草庵に幾度も足を運んでくれた劉備に対し、孔明は『天下三分の計』を説く。劉備はその壮大で緻密な世情分析に驚き、明晰な頭脳と知識を自らの力にしたいと願った。 もちろん目指すところは三国鼎立ではなく、曹操を倒した上での漢王朝の再興に他ならない。強大な力を持って北にある曹操の存在は動かしがたい現実。これと対等に戦うためには揚州の孫権と手を組むことが最も良策。軍事的経済的な拠点でもある荊州と、豊穣な土地ながら優れた統治者のいない益州を安定した力を持つ国にすることで、南下しつつある曹操を抑えることが可能となる。孔明の理論は、劉備なしでは実現できないものでもあった。因みに、後の荊州赤壁の戦いでの勝因は、孔明の頭脳戦によるものであったことが語り継がれている。三国バランス政策、『天下三分の計』は、劉備だけでなく孔明も想い描いていた漢王朝再興への通過点に他ならないのである。 この縁頭は、孔明が自らの策『天下三分の計』を劉備に示している場面。その詳細に記された巻物を大きく広げて見入る劉備と張飛を前に、劉備の人物そのものを推し量ろうとじっと見つめる孔明を彫り描いている。壮大な三国志物語の最も重要な、同じ目的へと向かいながらも異なる立場にあった両者をひとつにする瞬間を題に得たのは奈良利寿。利壽の縁金具は比較的腰が低い。狭い画面ながら赤銅地を奈良派独特の地斑状石目地に仕上げ、人物の身体の動きまで正確に捉えて写実的な高彫に金銀素銅の色絵を施し、精密な鏨を加えて歴史的場面を再現している。 巻物を広げ、策略の緻密さと深い読みからなる内容に驚き、目を丸くする特徴的な鷲鼻の張飛に対し、厳しい視線を投 げかけ、一文字一文字確かめるように読み込んでいるのが劉備。僅か一寸に満たない縁頭という画面に、衣服の揺れからなる身体と手の動き、皮膚感、さらに目の動き、顔つきと、三者の性格までも彫り表わしている。 このような歴史背景を鮮明にする人物描写こそ江戸に栄えた奈良派の特性。土屋安親、杉浦乗意と共に奈良三名人と謳われた利寿の持ち味が、本作においても細部に亘って表出されている。 利寿は太兵衛と称し利治の門人で寛文七年の生まれ。三国志や源平合戦など歴史に取材した人物図を得意とし、寿老人などの福神、猛虎や獅子のような霊獣を彫り描き、雉子や軍鶏など鄙びた中にも生命感の溢れる図も遺している。
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Nara
Edo
Musashi
Signed
Jūyō (NBTHK)
As written by the shop
Machibori · Edo
Nara Toshinaga (利寿), whose common name was Tahei, was born in Kanbun 7 (1667) and died in Genbun 1 (1736) at the age of seventy. One record names him a pupil of the Edo Nara master Toshinaga written 利永, the fourth generation of the school, and places his house at Honjo in Edo. With Tsuchiya Yasuchika and Sugiura Joi he is counted among the Nara Sansaku, the three celebrated masters of the Nara school, and the published sources rank him first among them: the eldest of the three and, in their words, the most skilled[[c:1]]. One commentary calls him the master "praised as first in the Nara school"[[c:2]], another sets him at "the summit of the Nara school"[[c:3]].
What the NBTHK names, again and again, is the force of his chisel. Of a kozuka with a tiger beside a waterfall it writes of "carving charged with power into every corner"[[c:4]], of his lions that their leaping high relief is "worth a second look" and "one of the highlights of Toshinaga"[[c:5]]. His relief is high and sukidashi, cut back from the plate so that the figure stands proud, and it is enriched with gold, silver, suaka and shibuichi colour inlay. On a Fujito battle kozuka the waves are carved in iron with finely graded sukidashi relief, the figures raised higher still, and the colour kept to a minimum.
His materials are wide. He works shakudo, iron, shibuichi, oborogin and roughened suaka, very often with an ishime texture that the published sources call his own[[c:6]]. Brass is singled out: of a Jurojin-and-tortoise fuchigashira they write that brass worked in sukidashi is "the method in which this maker excelled"[[c:7]]. Some pieces are finished with lacquer laid over parts of the plate, a Nara touch that darkens the oborogin or the copper. His output is dominated by fuchigashira, the fuchi low-waisted and slightly tall in the ichimonji manner, and the commentary repeats that "tsuba and kozuka are scarce, and fuchigashira are many"[[c:8]]. His tsuba are thick, and an early record doubts that they number more than ten; among them the Omori Hikoshichi and the Mure Takamatsu tsuba are famous.
His subjects run in two registers. The first is the human figure. Shoki and the oni are his particular theme, and the commentary says that "the expressions of Shoki and the oni are especially his own"[[c:9]]. Jurojin with a minogame tortoise is another subject he favoured, with several tsuba and fuchigashira of similar design surviving. Bishamonten, the Three Kingdoms, the Fujito crossing and the vanguard at the Uji river complete it. Of his mounted warriors the NBTHK writes that they follow the Goto manner but are "more true to life than the warriors of the Goto house"[[c:10]]. The second register is birds and beasts: fighting cocks with chicks at their feet, a tiger crouched above a falling torrent, a parent tiger swimming a raging current while its cub crouches on the bank, a lion with peony, and returning geese descending across a brass sky worked smooth in sukidashi.
Through both registers runs a contrast of movement and stillness. On the waterfall kozuka the published sources read the water as movement and the crouching tiger as stillness, a tiger "watching intently"[[c:11]] and about to spring. On one gamecock fuchigashira the bird is not in its fighting pose: beak closed and feathers lowered, it is read as the still "wooden cock" of the old tale, set against the combative cocks of his other works. A Uji river fuchigashira pairs his fuchi with a kashira added in the late Edo period by Toryusai Seiju.
His record numbers thirty designated works: three Important Cultural Properties, four at Tokubetsu Juyo, twenty at Juyo, and three recognised before the war as Juyo Bijutsuhin. The three Important Cultural Properties are national patrimony and do not change hands. The prewar records name Hosokawa Moritatsu, whose set is now with the Eisei Bunko, and Furukawa Toranosuke; a Jurojin fuchigashira comes from the Ryushido collection of Mitsumura Toshimo with a box inscribed by Unno Shomin in Meiji 37 (1904). A Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo fuchigashira appears from time to time, a tsuba or kozuka far more seldom.
Where Toshinaga 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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Machibori · Edo
80 pieces on the market now
The Nara school of kinko (metalwork) emerged in the mid-Edo period as one of the most celebrated independent traditions of sword-fitting craftsmanship, its masters working outside the patronage structures that governed the Goto house. The school coalesced around the figure of Nara Toshihisa (1667--1736), also known as Tahee, who as head master during its creative zenith defined the mature idiom of the lineage. Though the school's origins are often traced through the successive generations of the Nara family beginning with Toshiharu, its lasting fame rests upon the Nara sansaku — the Three Masters of Nara: Toshihisa, Tsuchiya Yasuchika, and Sugiura Joi. " Joi (1701--1761), trained under Juei in the lineage of Toshiharu, rose to become the third pillar of this triumvirate. Together, and joined by masters of allied lineages such as Hayashi Shigemitsu of the Higo kinko tradition, the Nara school and its circle represent the highest achievement of independent metalwork in the Edo period. The collective technical vocabulary of the Nara school encompasses an extraordinary breadth of materials and methods. Its masters worked in iron, shakudo, shibuichi, brass (shinchu), refined copper (suaka), and oborogin, treating surfaces as polished grounds (migaki-ji), hammered textures (tsuchime-ji), and stone-grain finishes (ishime-ji) — the latter developed by Toshihisa into a distinctive personal manner. The school's carving methods span the full spectrum: sukidashi-bori modeled relief, takabori high relief, the thread-fine line work of kebori, and the single-stroke katakiribori incision. " Yet individual specialties distinguish the masters within this shared vocabulary.
Toshihisa's art finds its fullest expression in sukidashi takabori — relief carving in which figures are raised with subtly graduated heights to produce an illusion of spatial depth — executed against his richly textured ishime-ji grounds. Joi developed nikuaibori, a modulated relief technique of unrivaled refinement, producing entire compositions through chisel work alone on polished oborogin grounds, dispensing with inlay and colored-metal accents. Yasuchika's range is perhaps the broadest, encompassing the distinctive daigaku-gata iron tsuba conceived for his patron and kozuka that "draw forth a small universe" within a confined surface, while his late works signed with the art name Tou achieve an austere, detached realm the NBTHK terms kotan. The legacy of the Nara school rests on the singular ability of its masters to transcend decorative function and achieve genuine artistic expression within the confines of sword fittings. Toshihisa, as the senior figure among the sansaku, established the standard of dignified, powerfully carved relief against richly textured grounds, and his figural subjects — gamecocks, tigers, Bishamonten — consistently achieve what NBTHK scholarship identifies as the philosophical duality of do (movement) and sei (stillness) within a single composition. " Joi, working primarily in the intimate format of the kozuka, achieved expressive authority through the sheer subtlety of his nikuaibori chisel work — his celebrated lion-and-cub compositions existing in closely related versions across multiple designations and published in the canonical reference Tagane no Hana. That the school also attracted masters of allied provincial traditions — Hayashi Shigemitsu of Higo, whose iron tsuba display the characteristic murasaki-sabi patina and "somewhat gentler feeling" that distinguishes the second generation from the founder Matahichi — attests to its gravitational influence on Edo-period metalwork as a whole. Across the school's production, the NBTHK's evaluative language converges on a consistent theme: compositional intelligence, technical command across the full range of materials and carving methods, and an expressive depth that elevates the finest works from accomplished craft to art of the highest order. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yasuchika安親 | — | 87 |
| Toshinaga利寿 | — | 30 |
| Joi乗意 | — | 12 |
| Minzan谺珉山 | — | 1 |
| Toshiyoshi利善 | — | 0 |
Exceptional craft of very high artistic value, judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin).
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.
NBTHK official siteIf, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.