SOLD

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Ukai Unju雲重

Unju, whose name is read variously as Unshige and Kumoshige, was the third-generation hand of the Bizen Ukai group, the smiths of Ukan-shō whose signatures begin with the character for cloud and who are therefore called the Unrui, the cloud group. The single dated Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi, inscribed Jōji 7 in the second month of 1368, fixes him squarely in the mid-Nanbokuchō, succeeding the line's founder Unshō and his successor Unji. The published sources set the group apart from everything around it: their manner, they write, differs from the mainstream Osafune work of the day and stands instead close to the Yamashiro Rai school and the Bitchū Aoe school, so that within an essentially Bizen character there is mixed the flavor of Kyoto Rai and of Bitchū Aoe, a temperament strong enough that they call the cloud group plainly the most unusual presence among Bizen swords. The Meikan records Unju as a son of the second Unshō, and dated work survives bearing the Bunwa, Jōji and Ōan eras. His characteristic hand is the opposite of the flamboyant clove-flower for which mid-Nanbokuchō Osafune is known. Unju's forte is the *suguha* and the *suguha*-toned line, shallowly *notare*, on which ride *ko-gunome*, *ko-chōji* and a small *midare*, with *ashi* and *yō* entering and *ko-nie* adhering. What lifts that quiet edge out of plain Bizen is the *nie* activity worked through it: *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* run frequently in the *ha*, with *hotsure*, *kuichigai-ba* and *uchi-noke*, an activity foreign to the *nioi*-based Osafune *chōji* and proper instead to the Rai and Yamato strains the sources attach to his group. On the Jōji 7 tachi the temper crowds in *hotsure*, *kuichigai-ba*, *uchi-noke*, *nijūba* and *yubashiri*, with deep *nioi* and vigorous *nie*, some of it coarse. The *bōshi* is a *sugu ko-maru* or, on the Yamato-cast pieces, a *yakizume* sweep. The *jigane* is where the group's Kyoto leaning shows most plainly. Unju forges an *itame*, frequently mixed with *mokume* and standing somewhat, with *ji-nie* well applied and *chikei* entering, and over it a faint *utsuri* rather than the bright *midare-utsuri* of standard Bizen. The published sources note that the cloud group's steel differs from other contemporary Bizen in its *mokume* cast, its *ji-nie* and its scant *utsuri*, the inheritance of a line that, in the persons of Unshō and Unji, is said to have gone up to Kyoto to train and afterward served Retired Emperor Go-Daigo. On the most Yamato-leaning blades the forging runs almost entirely into *masame*, the edge breaks into *kuichigai-ba* and *hotsure*, and the *bōshi* finishes *yakizume*, a strain the published sources read as Yamato workmanship within an otherwise Bizen body. He survives in two faces. The first is the small group of *ubu*, signed pieces, several carrying a written-down date: the Jōji 7 tachi, a Jōji 6 tantō, a Bunwa tachi, a Jōji naginata. On these the deep, thickly built tang on the edge side, the steeply angled file marks, the reverse-chisel emphasis of the signature characters, and above all the practice of cutting the date straight down beneath the long signature are, the sources say, features that answer entirely to Aoe practice, "matters entirely in accord with Aoe work" (全く青江物に相通ずる). The second face, far the larger, is the body of *ō-suriage mumei* katana attributed to him, broad Nanbokuchō blades with shallow *sori* and extended points, the silhouette of greatly shortened *ōdachi*. On these the published commentary accepts the traditional attribution from period and lineage, observing that the rounded *bōshi* and the *suguha* with small *chōji-ashi* are points of appreciation of the cloud group, "the things to look for in Unrui" (雲類の見どころ), rather than a feature unique to Unju alone. What sets Unju apart is exactly what the judges name when they reach for a comparison. His *ji* and *ha* are repeatedly said to be of a kind that at a glance could be taken for Aoe, "a workmanship that, at first sight, could be mistaken for Aoe" (一見青江に紛れる), and his group is placed close to the Yamashiro Rai school, so that the dated tantō's quiet *suguha* over a tight, faintly reflective *jigane* reads almost as a Bitchū piece until the Bizen *ji-nie* and the cloud-group signature settle it. The sources sum the whole effect in a single phrase: that within a Bizen temperament are mixed the airs of Kyoto Rai and Bitchū Aoe, "an individuality so strong it is distinctive among Bizen works" (備前気質の中に京の来派や備中青江派の趣が混在するなど個性が強く異色である). He stands at the third remove from the Kyoto-trained founders, carrying their restrained idiom forward while the broadening shapes and deepening *nie* of his own generation, touched by the transmitted Sōshū manner, press it toward the Nanbokuchō. For the collector Unju is a rare and individual name rather than a flowing supply. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through a single Tokubetsu Jūyō, a body of Jūyō, and three prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, some fifty-seven blades across the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers and sixty designated works on record in all. Only thirteen of these are signed, and dated signed work is rarer still, which is why the published sources prize the inscribed pieces for their documentary value as much as their quality. His blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions, among them the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures; one *naginata-naoshi* wakizashi carries a *handachi* mounting said to descend in the Date family, and the prewar designations passed through the Nanbu and Iwasaki houses. Because almost none can ever trade, and because his mumei katana surface only seldom and his signed and dated pieces seldomer, a privately held Unju is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of the most Kyoto-inflected corner of Bizen.

Eirakudo

eirakudo.shop