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About the maker

Aki Teruhiro輝廣

A katana dated Tenshō 17 (1589) and inscribed Nōshū Seki-jū Teruhiro is the document around which this smith's history was rewritten. Teruhiro is the founding name of an early-Shintō Hiroshima line, and the published sources read it as two closely matched hands set down together: the shodai, Higo no Kami Fujiwara Teruhiro, and his son-in-law the nidai, Harima no Kami Teruhiro. The shodai was a native of Mino, said to descend from Seki Kanetsune, who signed first as Kanetomo, then studied under Umetada Myōju of Kyōto, took service with Fukushima Masanori, changed his name and received the title Higo no Kami, and accompanied his lord from Kiyosu in Owari to Hiroshima in Geishū in Keichō 5 (1600). The traditional account made him a Myōju pupil first and an accomplished smith second. The Tenshō-dated katana overturned the order: the published commentary holds that it proves he was already signing Teruhiro and *meijin*-class while still in Mino, so that, in their words, he had already reached full stature 「明寿入門以前に既に大成していた」 before entering Myōju's circle, a finding that reopens the question of that teaching and is left to future research. His recognized work is a broad katana, strong in *sakizori* and at its largest carrying an *ō-kissaki*. Over an *itame* that flows toward the edge into *masame* and stands somewhat in *hada-dachi*, the shodai tempers a vigorous *notare* that boxes up in places into large, *hako*-leaning patterns, mixing *gunome* and *gunome-chōji*, with *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* breaking out, *ashi* and *yō* within, a *nioiguchi* that runs tight or subdued with *mura-nie*, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* throughout. The *bōshi* tempers deep and enters *midare*, turning back in *ko-maru* with a deep return that joins the *muneyaki*. The published sources read this *notare* as an admiration for Shizu workmanship, and of the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana they call it 「放胆な作柄を示した初代輝広の傑出した一振」, a blade that, with its wide body and large point, 「迫力に満ち溢れている」. The *jigane* is where the Mino origin shows most plainly. The shodai's *jigane* is an *itame* run through with *masame*, standing in *hada-dachi*, at times faintly whitish, the *ji-nie* gathered over a forging that is more vigorous than refined. The nidai's *jigane* is the more polished of the two: a tightly worked *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare*, the *ji-nie* laid in minute particles and densely, with *chikei* woven in frequently, a forging the published sources single out as bright and clear. Across both hands the temper is the constant. The principal manner is a *notare*, deep in *nioi*, with *gunome* set into it, *ashi* entering, *ko-nie* thick on the edge, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running, and *tobiyaki* breaking out here and there, the *nioiguchi* bright. A quieter *suguha* register recurs across both, drawn especially on *naginata*, *yari* and a few *katana*, in a *suguha-chō* that undulates shallowly with *ko-gunome*, *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba* along the *habuchi*. The nidai, an Owari man of the Kanie family commonly called Jinpachi who first signed Kanehisa, became the shodai's son-in-law and is thought, like his teacher, to have had a connection with Myōju; his earliest dated work is of Keichō 15 (1610). His own manner keeps the deep-*nioi* *ko-notare* with *gunome*, the *gunome* standing a little more strongly than in the shodai. Beyond it he turns deliberately to older models, and the record of those copies is unusually explicit. One wide *kata-kiriba* *wakizashi* the published sources read as modeled on Sōshū Sadamune, the master 「彼が最も私淑した相州貞宗に範を」 taken from; a *kanmuri-otoshi* piece in *suguha*, carved with *naginata-hi*, they read as an evocation of old Yamato, particularly Taima; a broad *katana* whose wide, high *notare* with a hardened *koshi-ba* they say calls to mind Kanemoto and Muramasa; and a recent *tantō* they take as a copy after a high Sōshū hand. Through all of them the flowing *hada*, the angular *gunome* and pointed elements, and a Sanbon-sugi-like *bōshi* betray, in their reading, his Mino descent. What sets the two hands apart from their Mino and Sōshū sources is exactly what the judges name in them. The shodai is read as the bolder, Shizu-touched hand, his *notare* spirited and large; the nidai as the more refined and various, deep in *nioi* and bright in the *ji*, and confident enough to range from Sadamune to Taima to Kanemoto. The published sources hold that the nidai equals or surpasses his teacher, recording that the second-generation Harima no Kami 「二代播磨守は初代に優るとも劣らぬものがある」, and of his finest blades they say his true strength is shown without reserve. The line did not end with him: after the Fukushima house was dispossessed it passed into the service of the Asano daimyō and prospered in Hiroshima for generations, many descendants likewise taking the title Harima no Kami. For the collector Teruhiro is a scarce early-Shintō name graded Jō-jō saku by Fujishiro. The shodai's surviving production is repeatedly said to number fewer than twenty pieces in all, counting *katana*, *tantō*, *yari* and *naginata* together, and his work has no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; the designated record runs instead through one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, a body of some thirty-five Jūyō blades across both generations, and a prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin. Provenance is thin but real, the recorded names being the Fukushima and Asano daimyō houses the smiths served and the prewar collector Hayashida Shōkei. Of the dated *katana* the published sources say it is exceptional documentary material, and of the early Jūyō example, that it is 「同作中の優品の一である」; of the nidai's best, that 「覇気があって出来も優れている」. Most designated Teruhiro blades are held rather than traded, so an example reaching the market is uncommon and is a notable thing for a private collector to encounter, a record of how a Seki smith carried Mino and Sōshū into the swords of early-Edo Hiroshima.

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