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About the maker

Senjuin Nobuyoshi延吉

Nobuyoshi is the one famous name of the Ryūmon group, a branch of Yamato swordsmiths active from the late Kamakura period into the Nanbokuchō. The published sources are nearly unanimous on his origins: "Nobuyoshi is traditionally said to have been a smith descending from the Senjuin line" (延吉は千手院派の流れを汲む鍛冶と伝え), and because he lived at Ryūmon-shō in Yoshino District, on the road that runs from Yoshino through to Uda, he was given the byname Ryūmon Nobuyoshi. The group is said to have included other smiths, with names such as Nagayoshi and Yoshiyuki appearing in the reference works, but only Nobuyoshi became well known, to the degree that, as one Jūyō commentary puts it, "when one speaks of Ryūmon, it refers to Nobuyoshi" (竜門といえば延吉を指すほどである). No dated blade by him survives; the swordbooks place him around the Shōō or Bunpō eras. The hand that defines him is not one manner but two, and the NBTHK draws the division on nearly every paper. One mode forges "a lively midare, or a suguha-toned temper into which chōji-ashi enter" (賑やかな乱れ刃や直刃調に丁子足の入った刃文を焼き), with *utsuri* standing in the *jigane* and a Bizen character coming forward. The other is a *suguha* that frays into *hotsure*, in which "*utsuri* does not stand and the Yamato color is strongly shown" (映りが立たず大和色が濃厚に示された), quiet and austere in feeling. His finest signed tachi, the wide-bodied piece once held by the Hori viscount and treasured by Inukai Bokudō, is the showy mode at its best: a wide *suguha-chō* with shallow *notare*, mixing *gunome*, *chōji*, *togariba* and angular elements, *ashi* and *yō* entering, the *nioiguchi* tightening with *ko-nie*, *nijūba* and *uchi-noke* worked in, with *kinsuji* and fine *sunagashi*. The published sources call it "foremost among works by the same hand" (同作中屈指の優品). The *jigane* is the constant that carries both modes. It is a well-forged *itame* that flows and inclines to *masame*, with thick *ji-nie* laid finely and *chikei* entering frequently, the masame strengthening toward the edge on the most Yamato of his blades. Over that *jigane* the *utsuri* is the variable: on the Bizen-leaning blades a clear *midare-utsuri*, sometimes a soft *nie-utsuri*; on the Yamato blades none at all. The *bōshi* runs straight and finishes in *hakikake*, often *yakizume*, sometimes a *ko-maru* with a short turnback, and across nearly the whole record the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. Even in the lively mode the temper stays *suguha*-based with *chōji* and *gunome* set into it rather than opening into a free *chōji-midare*, so the bright suguha with *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba* is the Yamato root that holds the two manners together. His signature divides as his workmanship does. Two ways of cutting the right element of the character 延 are observed, a blocky *kaisho* form resembling an abbreviated 正 and a cursive *sōsho* form resembling 氏; the published sources record that later writers "call the former Masa-Nobuyoshi and the latter Uji-Nobuyoshi" (前者を正延吉・後者を氏延吉と呼んでいる). The distinction is not merely calligraphic, for the sources note that blades with the former signature tend to a more tightly knit *hada* and those with the latter to a more standing grain, and one signed tachi is read as a transitional piece between the two. Signed works are set with a large two-character *mei* and survive in only a small number, so a genuine in-*mei* Nobuyoshi is a precious thing to encounter. What places him is exactly this position between two traditions. His bright *midare-utsuri* and *chōji-ashi* set the Bizen-leaning mode apart from the plainer Senjuin and Taima *suguha*, while the subdued suguha-with-*hotsure* keeps him within Yamato. The published sources observe that his smaller-signature blades have since old times been confused with Ko-Bizen Ko-Ichimonji work, and that confusion is itself the measure of where he stands. On the mumei katana, which form the bulk of his record, the judges affirm the attribution from the high-*shinogi* construction, the flowing *masame*-inclined forging and the bright suguha alone, calling one such blade a full expression of "the characteristic features and merits of Ryūmon Nobuyoshi in both *ji* and *ha*." For the collector he is a rare early Yamato name carried by a single great work. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. A signed tachi transmitted as an imperial possession of Emperor Go-Mizunoo is a National Treasure, and the published sources say plainly that "the presence of this celebrated masterpiece has contributed greatly to the high reputation of Nobuyoshi" (この名作があることによって延吉の名が高い); two further signed tachi are Important Cultural Properties, one of them preserved at Shitsukiyama Shrine in Yamaguchi. These are heritage held in shrine and institution and are not encountered on the market. His blades carry distinguished provenance recorded on their own papers, the Hori viscount and Inukai Tsuyoshi on the Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi, the Date of Sendai and the Uesugi among the Jūyō. Beyond the locked tier his record runs through one Tokubetsu Jūyō, the Jūyō and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, some twenty-six blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō ranks all told, most held rather than traded. A signed example comes to light only seldom and a fine mumei attribution from time to time, so a privately held Ryūmon Nobuyoshi is a notable thing for a collector, a document of how Yamato and Bizen met in one Yoshino hand.

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