Price on request

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Osafune Tomomitsu倫光

The largest of Tomomitsu's signed works is the great *odachi* of Futarasan Shrine in Nikko, a National Treasure dated Joji 5 (1366). The published record cites it from the first Juyo session as "the largest of his signed works" (有銘中最大のもの) and in the most recent as "the pinnacle of Osafune Tomomitsu" (長船倫光の最高峰), anchoring the carving of new submissions against it. Tomomitsu (倫光) was a swordsmith of the Bizen Osafune mainline in the Nanbokucho period, introduced by the NBTHK with one unvarying sentence: "one of the students of Kanemitsu, and by one tradition even said to have been Kanemitsu's younger brother" (兼光門下の一人であり、一説に兼光の弟とも伝えている). The modern formula runs his dated work from Jowa to Eiwa, 1345 to 1379; the dated blades on the official record carry nengo from Bunna through Oan. The same formula places him within the school: closest of all to Kanemitsu's manner, his rank of work "pressing the master himself" (作位的にも師に迫るものがある). Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. His own hand, the published sources repeat, is "the easygoing, gentle midare led by notare" (おおどかなのたれ主調の乱れ), most often a *ko-notare* mixing *gunome*, *ko-gunome*, pointed and somewhat angular teeth. The criterion is given in so many words: such a blade "is to be judged Tomomitsu from the point that the crests of the notare tend slightly to points" (のたれの頭がやや尖る). *Ashi* and *yo* enter, the temper leans to *nioi* with *ko-nie*, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through it; the *boshi* runs *midare-komi*, usually finishing pointed, at times swept with *hakikake*. Horimono mark his blades far more often than the rest of the school: beyond the *bo-hi* the record draws *bonji*, *gomabashi*, paired *futasuji-hi*, the three-pronged ken and above all the *kurikara*, the grass-style form of which "is a peculiar carving scarcely met with outside this smith and Kanemitsu" (此の工と兼光以外にはあまり経眼しない); the Futarasan odachi and a signed tachi in the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures carry the reference examples. The jigane is *itame* mixed with *mokume*, *ji-nie* attaching and fine *chikei* entering; on the *tachi* and *katana* a *midare-utsuri* rises, while the *hira-zukuri* pieces lean to a *sugu*-style or *bo-utsuri*. Here the published sources separate him from his master with unusual candor: the first Juyo session records that "compared with Kanemitsu his jigane is inferior, and many works tend somewhat to stand" (地がねが劣り、やや肌立つものが多い), and the recent formula repeats the division in kinder terms: close to Kanemitsu, yet marked as Tomomitsu by the slightly standing jigane and the unhurried notare base. The shape of what survives was set out in the first session: "tanto and short wakizashi survive signed in comparative numbers, but the tachi are almost all unsigned" (短刀、小脇指は比較的多く有銘のものが現存するが、太刀は殆ど無銘物である). His tachi were mostly the long blades of the Enbun-Joji fashion, wide, with little taper and an extended *chu-kissaki*, and they come down as *o-suriage mumei* katana; the signed and dated work concentrates in the wide, *sunnobi*, *hira-zukuri* tanto and wakizashi, two carrying the incised invocation Hachiman Daibosatsu (八幡大菩薩). The signature is the six-character long mei Bishu Osafune Tomomitsu (備州長船倫光), smallish, often in a fine chisel, set toward the mune, with the date on the ura; twenty-eight of the designated blades are signed against thirty-one unsigned. The gold inlays on the shortened blades, kinzogan-mei of Hon'ami Kojo, Koyu and Sato Kanzan and a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, are attributions by later appraisers, not signatures; one Juyo katana keeps its original mei folded back as an orikaeshi-mei. An early entry raises, and leaves open, the question of two generations of the same name (同名二代あるもののごとく). Two side manners flank the notare. On signed work of Joji and Oan he also worked the older spine of the school: a midare led by *kataochi-gunome* or squared, angular teeth; the sources hold such a tachi against his notare masterpieces and call it proof of "the breadth of his working range and the sureness of his technique" (作域の広さ), while a small kataochi tanto recalls Kagemitsu and Kanemitsu and "at first sight could be mistaken for a Kamakura-period piece" (一見鎌倉期のものにも見紛う). Among the unsigned attributions stands a markedly nie-strong group (一段と沸の強い出来口), where *yubashiri* and small *tobiyaki* appear along the temper and the pointed boshi completes what the record names "the Soden-Bizen character" (相伝備前の特色). Its emblem is the great hocho-gata wakizashi of Yasukuni Shrine, recorded with its koshirae in Matsudaira Sadanobu's Shuko-jisshu (集古十種) as the sword of Egara Tenmangu in Kamakura, handed down of old as a work of Masamune, "a celebrated piece famous since antiquity" (古来世に喧伝された名品); the modern judges read its vivid utsuri, notare-led midare and pointed boshi as a Bizen smith under Soshu influence; its kurikara, close to that of the Futarasan odachi, settles the attribution. In inverse, the kataochi-gunome that defines Kagemitsu and Kanemitsu recedes in him, and suguha falls away almost entirely. The record sets him beside the other Kanemitsu students, Hidemitsu, Masamitsu and Motomitsu, whose works resemble the master while falling a step short; no successor line is drawn for him. Sixty-four designated works stand on the official record: the Futarasan National Treasure, two Important Cultural Properties, eight Tokubetsu Juyo and fifty-one Juyo, fifty-nine in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. The provenance roll runs through the great houses: the first Juyo session's signed tachi of Oan 6 came down in the Yamauchi family, lords of Tosa; the Tokubetsu Juyo katana with the gold-inlaid attribution descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family as the reputed sword of Matsudaira Shungaku, with a Genroku 7 (1694) origami of Hon'ami Kojo; another katana, bestowed by Ii Naomasa on his retainer Suzuki Iwami no Kami Shigeyoshi, was later presented to the Mito Tokugawa family; other pieces passed through the Okubo lords of Odawara and the statesman Ito Miyoji. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties, three blades, are patrimony held permanently outside the market, the odachi at Futarasan Shrine and the wakizashi at Yasukuni with its Shuko-jisshu koshirae. What a private collector may realistically encounter lies in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, most of it the o-suriage mumei katana cut down from his grand tachi; a signed and dated tanto or wakizashi is the rarer event, and an ubu signed tachi rarer still; the first session already observed that tachi of ordinary length were few from his hand. A Tomomitsu reaches the market only from time to time, recognized when it does by the easy notare whose crests tend slightly to points.

Nihon Art

nihonart.com