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About the maker

Hatakeda Moriie守家

The oldest dated work bearing the name Moriie is a tachi of Bun'ei 9 (1272), and around that date the published sources place the first master of the Hatakeda school of Bizen, a contemporary of Osafune Mitsutada in the middle Kamakura period. He is called Hatakeda Moriie because he lived at Hatakeda, hard beside Osafune; yet neither Moriie nor Sanemori and the rest of his school ever signed "Hatakeda-ju" (畠田住), while inscriptions such as "Bizen no Kuni Osafune-ju Moriie saku" (備前国長船住守家造) survive, and from this the published record concludes that Hatakeda was most likely a small place-name within Osafune village itself. The meikan set his line under Moritsune of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school. Across decades of designations the NBTHK characterizes him in nearly the same sentence each time: his workmanship broadly resembles that of the contemporary Osafune smiths, but generally "the jigane tends to stand, and kawazuko-choji is conspicuous in the tempered edge" (地がねが肌立ち、焼刃に蛙子丁子が目立つところに特色が見られる). The kawazuko, the *choji* whose head swells like frog-spawn, is named "the most characteristic yakiba of Moriie and Mitsutada" (守家・光忠の最も特色ある焼刃); it persists among the juniors of the Hatakeda school and is only rarely seen in Mitsutada's son Nagamitsu. The appraisers read the trait at depth. On one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi where the kawazuko is not especially overt in the *yakiba* itself, they note instead that the valleys of the midare turn kawazuko-shaped toward the edge (刃方に向って谷が蛙子状), and count that, with the standing forging, among the major points of his recognition. On unsigned blades the deciding point is the kawazuko breaking into great clusters midway along the blade, where, the published record states, "lies the point of attribution to Moriie" (蛙子が大房に乱れるところに守家の極めどころがある). Quality alone can carry the judgment: of an ubu, unsigned tachi the commentary writes flatly that work rising to this level of technique "could be no one but Moriie" (これ程までに技術の上がるものは守家以外にはない). His tachi carry high *koshi-zori*, *funbari* at the base and a *chu-kissaki*; several are long with thick *kasane*, and the designations praise the dignity of the *ubu* examples. The *jigane* is *itame* that tends to stand, with *ji-nie*, and over it a vivid *midare-utsuri* rises; the notes return to that *utsuri* again and again. The temper at full power is a flamboyant *choji-midare* mixing *ko-choji*, *gunome* and pointed elements with the kawazuko, at times large *choji* as well; *ashi* and *yo* enter well, the temper is *nioi*-primary with *ko-nie*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through, *tobiyaki* appear in places, and the *nioiguchi* is bright. The *boshi* runs *midare-komi* or settles toward *ko-maru*. Of a signed Tokubetsu Juyo tachi whose *midare-utsuri* stands vividly and whose deep-*nioi* *choji-midare* carries an exceptionally clear *nioiguchi*, the NBTHK writes a finish that "must be called his masterpiece" (彼の傑作と称すべき). Beside that flamboyance the published sources recognize a second register, which they call his subdued class (穏やかな部類). A kodachi carries a *hoso-suguha* base mixed with *ko-gunome* and *ko-notare* over a standing *itame* with the finest *ji-nie*, its *nioiguchi* tightening; a ken, a rare survivor in his name, shows tight *ko-itame* and a narrow *suguha* with *yubashiri*-like *tobiyaki* and *nijuba*; and one signed tachi turns wholly small-patterned, its *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome* set over a dense, tightly knit *ko-itame* that the notes single out for praise. The large, boldly cut signature sits even over this quiet manner, and the kodachi so signed is judged a precious document for the relation between his mei and his workmanship. The generations behind the name are an open question, and the sources are candid about it. The standard view posits two, the first beside Mitsutada and the second beside Nagamitsu, yet the same designations state that "a clear division between the first and second generations remains a subject for future research" (初二代の明確な区分は、なお今後の研究課題) and that "some advocate a single-smith theory" (一人説を唱える向きもある). Honma went further, seeing at least three generations within the Kamakura period alone and allowing that more than one hand may have cut the same mei within a single workshop. Large characters on tachi are traditionally read as the first generation, but the record warns that the generations cannot be divided by the size of the characters alone, and it notes that extant signed works of the first generation are comparatively few (比較的に少い). Among the designated works gathered here twenty-two are signed against five unsigned, most with the large two-character mei; on two blades a kao accompanies the signature, a point of documentary value with a parallel in a tanto published in the Kozan Oshigata. His place in the school map is fixed by Mitsutada. The two worked in neighboring villages in the same years, and the published sources say their manners show much in common; the differences they give are drawn from Moriie's own work, a jihada that stands more often than the Osafune forging, and the kawazuko a degree more insistent in the *yakiba*. That temper passed to the juniors of the Hatakeda line, and the school continued under Sanemori, who signed "Bizen no Kuni Osafune junin Umanojo Sanemori saku" (備前国長船住人右馬允真守造); the Moriie name itself runs on into the Nanbokucho, the latest dated examples reaching the Koan and Kentoku eras. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, the top grade of his scale. Twenty-seven designated works stand on record: six Important Cultural Properties, five Juyo Bijutsuhin, and fifteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, three of them at the higher rank. The provenance recorded against nine of his blades runs through the great houses: the Tokugawa, among them Tokugawa Iesato and Tokugawa Kunijun, the Mitsui, the Hosokawa, the Uesugi, the Okudaira and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts, examples rest today with the Kyoto National Museum and the Eisei Bunko, and with the shrines Hie Jinja and Sumiyoshi Taisha; the Important Cultural Properties remain in such custody as cultural patrimony and do not trade. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, fifteen blades in all, held closely and appearing on the market only at long intervals; when one does appear it is most often a Juyo example, and a signed tachi carrying the large two-character mei stands at the very top of what the name can offer.

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