¥7,700,000

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Specifications

About the maker

Ayanokoji Sadatoshi定利

The old registers list several smiths for the Ayanokoji school of Kyoto, Sukesada, Sadaie, a second Sadatoshi written with different characters, Sueyuki and Tadaie among them, yet of them all only Sadatoshi (綾小路定利) survives in signed work. The published sources count the Ayanokoji, with Awataguchi and Rai, as one of the three lineages of Yamashiro swordsmiths in the Kamakura period; the school takes its name from the smiths resident on Ayanokoji street in Kyoto's Shijo quarter, and "its founder is Sadatoshi" (祖は定利である). On his date the registers do not agree: the Noami Meizukushi places him around Hoji (1247-48), the Kokon Kaji Meizukushi around Bun'ei (1264-75), and one tradition relates that he was on friendly terms with Rai Kuniyuki, the two even producing substitute works for one another as demand required. Within the school the only other hand attested in surviving work is Sadayoshi; the remaining register names survive in no blade at all. Surveying the extant works as a whole, the published sources return to a single formulation: his manner follows the working range of the old Kyoto makers of the Sanjo and Gojo schools, an archaic elegance that calls Awataguchi Kuniyasu to mind. His classic *tachi* is slender, the taper from base to tip marked, the *koshizori* high with *funbari*, closing in a *ko-kissaki*. The *hamon* is a *ko-midare* mixed with *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome* over a *suguha* tone, the intervals of the undulations close, the pattern small and intricately complex. Along the *yakigashira*, still smaller patches of *yaki*, with *yubashiri* and *tobiyaki*, appear in dotted succession and build an effect akin to *nijuba*. Above all the *nioiguchi* clouds softly: this *urumi* is what the published record names "one of his viewing points" (彼の見処の一つであるうるみ), and the rare blade without it is noted as the exception. From precisely these traits the NBTHK draws its chronological conclusion, the workmanship being "appraised as going back earlier than the conventional view" (通説よりも年代が遡るものと鑑せられる). The jigane is a well-knit *ko-itame*, in places mixed with *nagare* or a slightly standing *itame*, with fine *ji-nie* lying thick, fine *chikei*, and a *nie-utsuri* that stands out; *jifu*-like patches mix in on some blades. At its best the jigane carries a moist, viscous quality, and of one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi the published sources write that it precisely accords with the phrase of the old tradition texts, "appearing viscous and sticky" (とろめきてねばきようにみへたり). Within the *ha*, *ashi* and *yo* enter frequently, *ko-nie* adheres, and fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through. The *boshi* continues the temper quietly with *hakikake*, at times taking on a flame-like appearance or finishing *yakizume*, on some blades entering *midare-komi* with a small *ko-maru* return. Two registers carry the attribution. The signed tachi bear a two-character *mei*, the character Sada cut large in a cursive manner and the character Toshi smaller (定の字を大きく草書風に), set low on the *nakago* toward the *mune* and at times avoiding the groove, a placement the published sources note on the tachi designated National Treasure as well. Most signed blades are *suriage*; an *ubu* *nakago* is recorded as rare among his works, and one katana preserves the signature folded back as an *orikaeshi-mei* rather than lose it to the shortening. The *o-suriage* *mumei* katana are appraised by the same marks: the published sources speak of work that conforms to "the rules of Sadatoshi" (定利の掟), and the best of the unsigned blades are said to show "a style directly connected to his signed works" (有銘作に直結する作風). No dated work survives, and the scholarship turns on that absence. The registers' Bun'ei dating sits against the archaic cast of everything extant, so the NBTHK re-reads the old substitute-work legend rather than discard it, concluding that if there was indeed a point of contact between Sadatoshi and Kuniyuki, "it would fall at Sadatoshi's late years and the beginning of Kuniyuki's" (定利の晩年と国行の初期の頃ということになろう). A minority of blades departs from his usual make. In these the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear without *urumi*, the temper led by *choji* on a *suguha* tone, and the published sources read them toward the younger Kyoto master: one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi is described as "a make recalling Rai Kuniyuki, the nioiguchi brightly clear" (来国行を思わせる出来で匂口がよく冴え), the activity within its *ha* splendid. His place among the Yamashiro smiths rests on his own tells, the tightly packed small-pattern *midare*, the dotted *nijuba* effect along the *yakigashira*, and the softly clouded *nioiguchi*, the very features the published record treats as evidence for setting him a generation before his registered date. At the other end of his range stands the blade the sources judge the most archaic of all his works, a grand *ubu* signed tachi read as probably of his initial period, in which the connection to Awataguchi Kuniyasu can be plainly discerned. The school he founded continued only narrowly; with Sadayoshi the sole other attested hand, the surviving Ayanokoji work is concentrated almost entirely in Sadatoshi's own name. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and forty-three designated works stand on record. One is a National Treasure, the tachi in the care of the Tokyo National Museum, of which Honma records that among all the Sadatoshi he had examined it is the finest; three more are Important Cultural Properties, and five hold Juyo Bijutsuhin certification, among them blades once owned by Maeda Toshinari and by Kurokawa Fukusaburo, the latter now in the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. Twenty-five works on record are signed against seventeen unsigned. Seventeen blades carry recorded provenance, through the Kishu Tokugawa house, the Shimazu of Sadowara in Hyuga, the Maeda, the Matsudaira, and the Meiji statesman Ito Miyoji, a noted lover of swords; one tachi retains an origami of Shotoku 2 (1712) by Hon'ami Kochu valuing it at thirty gold pieces. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved in the museum and shrine collections that keep them, Hie Jinja and Ise Jingu among the recorded institutional owners. What a private collector may realistically encounter lies in the thirty-two blades of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, though most of recorded whereabouts are held privately or institutionally and seldom move; a signed Ayanokoji tachi comes to the market only rarely, and is a landmark for Yamashiro connoisseurship when it does.

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