SOLD

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Aoe Tsuguyoshi次吉

Tsuguyoshi is an Aoe smith of Bitchū Province, working in the Nanbokuchō period, whom the published sources rank alongside Tsugunao and Moritsugu as "one of the representative smiths of the Aoe school in the mid-Nanbokuchō period." The blades gathered under his name are signed and dated across the 1340s and 1350s, the years of Ryakuō, Jōwa, Kōō and Enbun, and the published commentary treats these dated, *ubu* pieces as valuable documentary material for the study of the smith and his school. He stands at a turning point in the long Bitchū story the same sources recall, in which the early-eleventh-century travel miscellany *Shin Sarugakki* already named "the swords of Bitchū" among the noted products of the provinces, and the Aoe smiths who flourished along the lower Takahashi River two centuries later inherited that reputation. Where their late-Kamakura work calmed and the Nanbokuchō work tightened, Tsuguyoshi is one of the hands in whom the school's clear, bright temper reaches its height. His characteristic manner is the *suguha*, and the sources make the point as a plain rule of kantei: broadly "Tsuguyoshi tends to produce *suguha*, while Tsugunao more frequently shows reverse *chōji-midare*" (概して次吉には直刃が、次直には逆丁子乱れが多く), with a tight, bright *nioiguchi* shared between the two. His is a *chū-suguha* or a slender *hoso-suguha*, shallowly *notare*, into which small *ko-gunome*, occasional *ko-chōji* and angular elements enter, carried by *ko-ashi*, *yō* and a faint reverse-slanting tendency. The temper is *nioi*-dominant with *ko-nie*, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running within, and above all the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. One Aoe wakizashi is called a typical example of the *suguha* associated with him, and of his signed *naginata-naoshi* the published sources say it shows "the working range of *suguha* in which the smith fully demonstrates his forte" (彼の本領を発揮した直刃の作域), the *chikei* entering more conspicuously than in his usual production. The *bōshi* runs straight into a *ko-maru*, at times rising above the *yokote*, occasionally finishing in *hakikake* or *yakitsume*. The *jigane* is the constant. He forges a well-packed *ko-itame* mixed with *mokume*, the grain at times finely standing, with very fine *ji-nie* set thickly in *mijin* and delicate *chikei* entering well; in places a *jifu*-like complexion and patches of *sumihada* appear, the speckled tells of the Aoe *jigane*. Over it a *midare-utsuri* stands toward the *mune*, and on his finest blades parallel streaks of *suji-utsuri* rise near the edge as well, the two layering into a banded *dan-utsuri*. The published sources name this their distinctive mark: of one dated Jōwa tachi they write that "the *midare-utsuri* appearing close to the cutting edge is a hallmark peculiar to this tradition" (刃に近くあらわれた乱れ映りは一派に独特のものである). It is the *utsuri*, more than any flourish in the temper, that carries the eye on his blades. Within his record the sources draw two further faces. One is a small group of pieces judged not from the school's Nanbokuchō height but from the very end of Kamakura into the early Nanbokuchō: of standard *mihaba* with little taper, the curvature high with *koshizori* and added *saki-zori*, the *chū-kissaki* not yet greatly extended, a form read as marking the entry into the new age, the same tight *suguha* and *dan-utsuri* over a closely packed *ko-itame*. The other is the reverse-leaning touch. The flamboyant *saka-chōji-midare* the sources hold more characteristic of Tsugunao is largely absent from his own blades, yet a reverse tendency enters his *suguha* as *saka-ashi* and a *gyaku-chōji* flavor: one *ō-suriage mumei* katana attributed to him widens into a *suguha* with reverse-slanting *ashi* and *gyaku-chōji* and a *midare-komi bōshi* that rises to a pointed turn, and the Important Cultural Property tachi recorded under his name, a long signed and dated blade, is described with a *ko-midare* and *gyaku-chōji* temper, the most pronounced of its kind on his record. What sets him within the school is exactly what the judges name. His tang is filed in the *ō-sujikai* of the Aoe convention, the long signature often cut on the *haki-omote* toward the *mune* with the date written descending, a habit the sources call typical of Nanbokuchō Aoe work. Against Tsugunao he is the *suguha* hand; against Ko-Aoe, whose *suguha* is *ko-nie-deki* with a somewhat subdued, *shizumi nioiguchi*, his is the brighter, tighter, clearer temper of the later school. The published sources gather him with Tsugunao and Moritsugu as "one of the representative smiths of the mid-Nanbokuchō Aoe school" (南北朝時代中期の青江派を代表する刀工の一人である), and praise the broad, unhurried temper of one Jūyō tachi as full of commanding spirit, a work in which "the highlights of this smith, who excelled in *suguha*, are shown without omission" (直刃を得意とする同工の見どころが余すところ無く示されており). For the collector he is a documented Nanbokuchō name whose signed, dated blades survive in fair number. Fujishiro's rating is not recorded; the *Tōkō Taikan* values him in the upper-middle range. He has no National Treasures. His record runs instead through one Important Cultural Property, a long signed and dated tachi, and the higher modern tiers, one blade papered to the Tokubetsu Jūyō and some eighteen to Jūyō. His provenance is sparing and honestly so: an *ō-suriage mumei* katana attributed to him was transmitted in the Mito Tokugawa family, and the rest are held in private and institutional collections of recorded but partial whereabouts. Of the blades that can change hands, most are held rather than traded, so a signed Tsuguyoshi comes to market only from time to time and a dated, *ubu* example is a notable thing to encounter, valued, as the sources repeat, as reference material for understanding the range of his work.

Eirakudo

eirakudo.shop