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About the maker

Chogi Nagashige長重

Nagashige worked at Osafune in the opening years of the Nanbokuchō period, in the line that the published sources rank beside Kanemitsu as a 'standard-bearer of Sōden-Bizen' (相伝備前の旗頭), the Bizen wing that took up Sōshū technique. His relationship to Chōgi was long misread, and the correction is one of the firmer facts on record: an older account made him Chōgi's younger brother, but his surviving signed blades carry dates of Kenmu 1 and 2 (1334–1335) and Kōei 1 (1342), while no work of Chōgi can be traced earlier than Shōhei 15, so the prevailing view today makes him Chōgi's elder brother. The dated anchor of that argument is concrete: a tantō signed Bishū Osafune-jū Nagashige and dated to the cyclical year kinoe-inu, Kenmu 1, once the sashiryō of Hon'ami Kōtoku, is his National Treasure. His characteristic hand is the *Sōden-Bizen* midare, and it is most fully seen on the broad mumei katana that make up the bulk of his record. Over a standing *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare-hada*, the *jigane* standing a little, he tempers a shallow *notare* or *gunome* base into which enter *ko-gunome*, *ko-chōji* and pointed *togariba*, with abundant *ashi* and *yō*. The *nioiguchi* is deep and bright, *ko-nie* adheres well with passages of rougher *nie*, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run freely, small *tobiyaki* and *yubashiri* scattered along the edge. The *bōshi* runs *midare-komi*, rising to a pointed tip with *hakikake* or turning back in a small *ko-maru*. The construction is the full Nanbokuchō build, wide in *mihaba* with little width-taper, thick in *kasane*, an extended *chū-kissaki* or an *ō-kissaki*, hand-heavy and imposing. The *jigane* carries the Bizen credential that keeps the work from turning purely Sōshū. Itame with thick *ji-nie* and well-entering *chikei* appears on every blade, and over it stands a *midare-utsuri*, clear where the forging is *itame* with *mokume* and falling to a faint *utsuri*-like cast on the rest. On the signed register, by contrast, the hand is tighter and calmer. The dated tachi run to a well-packed *itame* with fine *ji-nie* and only a light *utsuri*, the temper a *chū-suguha* or *suguha*-toned line mixed with *ko-gunome* and *ko-chōji*, even *saka-ashi* entering, *ko-nie* and *ko-ashi* present. Devotional carving, *bonji* set at the *koshimoto*, appears on more than one piece. The published sources draw two further registers within his own work. On the signed tantō they read a more emphatic Sōshū cast than Chōgi himself, noting that 'among the signed survivors the tantō press the Sōshū manner further than Chōgi' (短刀に長義以上に相州伝を強調); these are *hira-zukuri* with a standing hada, a small *notare* with *gunome* growing vigorous toward the tip, *sunagashi* frequent and the pointed *bōshi* powerful. One signed tantō stands apart from everything else, its temper centered on *kataochi-gunome* mixed with squared *kaku-gunome*, evoking Kanemitsu, his circle and even Motoshige rather than the Chōgi midare; the sources call it 'a stylistic range unusual for Nagashige' (長重としては珍しい作域) and value it as documentary material for the breadth of his manner. What separates Nagashige from Chōgi is named the same way in entry after entry, and it is the whole of his kantei. His *midare* is of smaller scale and his *yaki* somewhat lower, yet 'the *nie* in both *ji* and *ha* surpasses Chōgi's' (地刃の沸づきが長義に優る); it is on this single recurring point that a *Sōden-Bizen* blade is converted into a Nagashige attribution. His distinction is carried by his own traits, the smaller, lower midare laid over a *ji* and *ha* more richly charged with *nie*, rather than by any feature borrowed from his brother. Traditionally his son Nagamori carries the line forward in a conspicuously *chōji*-based but somewhat lesser hand. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. Signed, *ubu* Nagashige are extremely rare, and the body of his record runs through the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, above which stands his single National Treasure, the Kenmu 1 tantō held in the Hon'ami family. Several blades carry daimyō provenance: a katana given by Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Naruse house of Inuyama in Owari and long kept there, others through the Maeda of Kaga, the Nabeshima of Saga and the Shimazu. With only thirteen blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers and almost all of them held rather than traded, a signed Nagashige comes to light only seldom; a privately held example, where the broad *Sōden-Bizen* katana shows its smaller midare over an unusually nie-laden *ji* and *ha*, is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, and a document of how Bizen absorbed the Sōshū manner.

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