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Rai Kunizane國眞

Rai Kunizane is one of the smaller names of the Rai school of Yamashiro, transmitted in the swordbooks as a son or pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, the younger brother of Rai Kunimitsu and the elder brother of Rai Tomokuni, working in Kyoto from the close of the Kamakura period into the Nanbokuchō. His record is almost entirely a question of two faces, and the published sources state the genealogy itself with caution: the *Meikan* gives him the Shōwa era and lists separately a smith of the same name placed before Kenmu, while the commentary observes that the received descent appears strained in both its workmanship and its chronology, so that a first and a second generation must be assumed from the works themselves. He is, in the end, less a single documented hand than the connoisseurship convention by which a particular kind of refined Rai work has been preserved. The characteristic Kunizane that a collector meets is the *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana attributed to him from old times, and it is read first in the *jihada*. Over a well-forged *itame*, at times a tightly packed *ko-itame* mixing in *mokume* and flowing *nagare*, the grain tends to stand a little, thick *ji-nie* adheres in fine grains, *chikei* enter frequently, and on the *ji* a faint *nie-utsuri* or pale *utsuri* often rises. The published sources call this a steel that resembles Rai Kunimitsu yet, in their own words, is “similar to Rai Kunimitsu though falling somewhat short of him” (来国光に似てやや及ばない), the standing grain and the quiet *nie-utsuri* marking the manner that carries the Rai *jigane* a step into the Nanbokuchō rather than holding to the bright, closely-packed Yamashiro *ji* of pure Rai. Over that *jigane* he sets a *suguha*-toned line, broad or medium, into which *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and a small *midare* enter. *Ashi* and *yō* work abundantly, *ko-nie* adheres well, the *habuchi* breaks into fine *hotsure* and at times a *nijūba* tendency, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through, the *nioiguchi* by turns tight and clearly bright. The *bōshi* runs straight to a small round, or enters *midare-komi* and sweeps with vigorous *hakikake*, on the more flamboyant pieces becoming pointed and flame-like. The decisive point of the attribution is one of degree, not of kind: the temper is the calm Rai register, but its *midare* appears in a smaller-patterned design than Kunimitsu's, and the published commentary turns that very observation into the rule, judging such a work to be “similar to Rai Kunimitsu though slightly lower in rank” and concluding that “within the group it is most appropriate to appraise it, as tradition has it, as the work of this smith” (一派の中では所伝通りに鑑することが最も妥当). The other face is the signed work, and it is the rarer and more puzzling. Signed pieces are exceedingly few, chiefly *hira-zukuri* *wakizashi* and *tantō*, wide in *mihaba* and *sun-nobi* for their length, thin in *kasane* with a shallow *sori*, the typical Nanbokuchō shape, the three-character signature cut somewhat large below the *mekugi-ana*. Their forging is *itame* with *mokume*, flowing and slightly standing, with *ji-nie* well adhered, but their temper departs from the mainstream attribution: a *suguha* tone broken by *notare* and *ko-gunome*, the *nie* in places strongly thick, the edge running into *hotsure*, *uchi-noke*, a *kuichigai-ba* effect, *nijūba* and *yubashiri*. Several carry an “all-over” *hitatsura*-like temper that, in the published sources' phrase, shows “a burnt-looking manner approaching the workmanship of the Hasebe group” (皆焼風をおびて長谷部に近似した出来口). From this the commentary on the signed *tachi* and *wakizashi* concludes that “one is compelled to judge them works of the Nanbokuchō period” (南北朝の作と断定せざるを得ない), and it is this gap between the calm mumei attributions and the flamboyant signed pieces that sustains the standing question of a first and a second generation of the name. What sets the Kunizane attribution apart from its neighbours is exactly what the judges name, and they take care to draw it from his own work rather than from the comparand. He stands within the Rai school beside Rai Kunimitsu and Rai Kunitsugu, carrying the Yamashiro manner forward; his is the refined Rai *suguha* read as a step below Kunimitsu in rank and smaller in the pattern of its *midare*, the faint *nie-utsuri* on a slightly standing *itame* his recurring tell. One signed katana with a Hon'ami gold-inlay breaks instead into a *chōji-midare* mixed with *gunome*, the undulations tightly clustered and *muneyaki* intermingled, which the commentary reads as the Rai tradition of Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu carried with a forceful spirit; the *hitatsura*-leaning pieces, with *tobiyaki* and *yubashiri* gathering toward the *monouchi*, are where it locates his individuality. The attribution is therefore a careful one, made by stylistic level and bearing within the school rather than by a single inimitable trait. For the collector he is an accessible Rai name with a quietly distinguished provenance. Fujishiro grades him Jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs entirely through the Jūyō rank, twenty-five blades in the Jūyō tier, most of them *ō-suriage* mumei katana bearing gold-inlaid Hon'ami attributions, the published sources calling several of these especially superior among works attributed to him and sound in both *ji* and *ha*. Signed examples are the prize and the scarcity, so few that the commentary on one Jūyō *wakizashi* calls it “exceedingly valuable material for understanding the workmanship of this so rarely signed smith” (在銘稀有な同工の作風を知る上でも、大変貴重な資料). His blades carry good *nikuoki* and a documented descent through the daimyō houses, among them the Sakai of Maebashi and Himeji, one katana bestowed on Sakai Tadataka in 1745 as a gift marking the retirement of the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and thereafter held by the family, with further pieces transmitted in the Nabeshima and Shimazu houses and examples now in the Ise Jingū Chōkokan, the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Fuji Museum. Because all of his record sits in the tradeable tier, a Kunizane katana is not beyond reach in the way a Kunimitsu of the first rank would be; a signed piece, on the other hand, comes to light only seldom, a notable thing for a collector to encounter and a document of how the Rai school carried itself into the Nanbokuchō.

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