¥3,000,000

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the school

Rai School来派

A calm, lustrous steel is the first thing the connoisseur's eye is meant to settle on with the Rai school: a finely forged *ko-itame* (小板目) worked until it is dense and refined, over which the *ji-nie* lies thickly in minute particles, fine *chikei* (地景) enter, and a *nie-utsuri* rises in the *ji*. This bright, refined *jihada*, the surface the trade reads as *Rai-hada* when its softer, looser patches intrude, is the constant beneath every manner the house produced. The school took shape in Kyoto in the mid-Kamakura period around the workshop of Rai Kuniyuki (來國行), the de facto founder of the line, whose chronology is reckoned from the Koan 1 (1278) *tachi* of his transmitted son. From Kuniyuki the *Yamashiro-den* tradition of late Kamakura was built, carried by Niji Kunitoshi, the two-character 國俊, traditionally his son and the nearest of the house to his hand; by the three-character Rai Kunitoshi, the first to crown his name with the character Rai, a practice all who followed took from him; and onward through Rai Kunimitsu (來國光), Rai Kunitsugu (來國次) and the lesser names Kunizane, Tomokuni, Kunihide and Mitsukane into the early Nanbokucho period. Whether the two Kunitoshi are one smith or two remains the classic open question of the school, argued from a span of dated work running about forty years from Koan 1 to Genko 1 (1321). What unites the house is a temper of restraint and activity at once, its life carried in the *nie* rather than in the height of the pattern. Against Kuniyuki's wide, *suguha*-toned *ha* and against the refined *chu*- or *hoso-suguha* of the three-character line, the smiths mix *ko-choji*, *ko-gunome* and small *midare*; *ashi* and *yo* enter densely, often as the Kyoto-style *kyo-sakaashi* (京逆足) that slants back toward the *nakago*, the opposite of the Bizen direction; the *nioiguchi* runs deep and bright, *ko-nie* attaches thickly, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* move through the body of the *ha*. The *boshi* is the school's most misjudged trait: a *ko-maru* drawn out by *hakikake*, the brushed *nie* of the point continuing the work of the *ji* below, often falling into *midare-komi* with a pointing tip. *Muneyaki* along the back recurs often enough that the records name it a habit of the Rai hand, and carving in the groove, *suken* or *gomabashi* with an added side *hi*, is a practice the texts call peculiar to Rai work. The strength of the *nie* within the *ha*, the *utsuri* rising as a *nie-utsuri*, and the *kyo-sakaashi* are precisely the marks that part Niji Kunitoshi's *choji*-dominant *midare*, which the old books said resembles the Bizen Ichimonji, from the Ichimonji itself. Where the early masters keep this calm Kyoto register, the late line bends toward *Soshu-den*: Kunitsugu, counted among the Ten Brilliant Pupils of Masamune and named Kamakura-Rai, shows the strongest *nie* of *ji* and *ha* in the whole school, a *notare* mixed with *gunome* the earlier Rai never had. For a collector the house style is the recognition tool. An unsigned, *o-suriage* *katana* settles to Rai when the packed *ko-itame*, the fine *nie* over it, the standing *utsuri* and the *kyo-sakaashi* read together; the named smith is then fixed by degree. Niji Kunitoshi and the three-character Kunitoshi, both graded Sai-jo saku by Fujishiro, anchor the canon, the latter unusually approachable because his signed work is abundant and roughly half of it *tanto*, late Yamashiro work in its purest form. Kunimitsu, the most prolific and most versatile of the house, gives the impression of surpassing his father in force; Kunitsugu, graded Jo-jo saku, is the Soshu-facing edge whose signed *tachi* are scarce. Mitsukane, the Chudo Rai who withdrew to forge on Mt. Hiei, stands apart as the strong pole, his *ji-nie* laid thicker than Kunitoshi's or Kunimitsu's and likened upward to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu; the smaller Kunizane, Tomokuni and Kunihide carry the *jigane* a step into the Nanbokucho. The provenance roll is of the first rank, with blades worn by Ieyasu and held beside the Honjo Masamune, *meibutsu* such as the Aizen Kunitoshi, the Torikai Kunitsugu and the Midare-Mitsukane, and descent through the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, Uesugi and Shimazu houses. Much sits locked as National Treasure and patrimony, yet the Juyo tier of the major names, and the whole record of the minor hands, remains a goal a serious collector can actually reach.

Toyuukai

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