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About the maker

Ko-Bizen Toshitsune利恒

Toshitsune is a smith of the Ko-Bizen Masatsune line, working at the close of the Heian period and into the early Kamakura, and the published sources transmit him as a disciple of Masatsune, in one account a son of Mitsutsune. A signed tachi of his, designated an Important Cultural Property, survives at the Kyoto National Museum, and three more signed tachi were named Important Art Objects in the prewar designations. He is, for an old-Bizen name, comparatively well recorded: signed pieces survive in notable number alongside a body of shortened, unsigned blades attributed to him on workmanship, so that the *Meikan* in fact lists three smiths who carried the name across the Shogen, Bunryaku and Kencho eras. His standing is fixed by the lineage he extends. The judges write that both his signature and his work make the relationship with the school's founder readily plausible, finding his blades to 'support the relationship with Masatsune' (正恒との関係も首肯し得る). The core of his hand is a *suguha*-based *ko-midare*, the calm old-Bizen temper the published sources read as recalling Masatsune. Into a shallow, small irregular line he mixes *ko-choji*, *ko-gunome* and small *midare*, with *ashi* and *yo* entering well, *ko-nie* adhering, and frequent *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through the edge. On one of his finest signed tachi the published sources single out the *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* that entwine the small *midare* at the base as splendid. The *boshi* runs straight into a small round, at times finishing with a *yakitsume* tendency and *hakikake*. The shape beneath it is the old-Bizen bearing: at base slender, the *koshizori* high with *funbari*, the curve settling into a *ko-kissaki*. The *jigane* is the constant. He forges an *itame*, in places a tighter *ko-itame* and in places standing a little, with *ji-nie* and frequent *chikei*; over it a *midare-utsuri* rises, clearing on his best pieces into a distinct *jifu-utsuri*, the speckled reflection of old Bizen steel. The published sources note that where the *ji-nie* gathers strongly the *utsuri* is the less conspicuous, so the reflection comes and goes with the steel rather than standing uniform. On the latest of his Juyo tachi the judges describe an *itame* mixed with *mokume* and tending to stand, thick *ji-nie* and frequent *chikei*, with the *jifu-utsuri* emerging clearly and the *nioiguchi* bright, and conclude that the blade 'fully manifests the distinctive qualities and virtues of Ko-Bizen' (古備前物の特色と美点を十二分に示しており). What the published sources name as Toshitsune's own tell, though, is *sugata*. Distinct from Masatsune, many of his blades, signed and shortened alike, are broad in *mihaba* and dignified in construction, the *chu-kissaki* at times compact toward *ikubi*, and over them the activity within the *hamon* is a step more florid: the small *midare* opens into *ko-choji* and a *choji-midare*, *jifu* enters the standing *itame*, and on one *ubu* tachi *yubashiri* gathers in the upper half into *nijuba*. The Jubun tachi at Kyoto and several signed examples carve *bo-hi*, while one tachi bears devotional *horimono* at the base, *bonji* with *gomabashi* and *bonji* with *suken*. The judges record three smiths of the name in the *Meikan*, which accounts for the variation in both signature and emphasis, and treat the spread as one tradition rather than two manners. The signed tachi, the published sources observe, include some whose edge is, like Masatsune, slightly subdued, and others somewhat more brilliant and florid, 'but in every case the boshi is rounded' (すべて帽子は丸い). That rounded *boshi*, with the well-ordered *jigane*, is exactly the thread by which the judges keep him within the line even on his broadest, most florid work. Reviewing his wide, dignified mumei katana, they grant that the construction is broader and the *hataraki* more flamboyant than Masatsune's, yet add that the refined *jigane* and the rounded *boshi* let one perceive the continuation of Masatsune's style. They affirm such blades from era and school, naming the imposing construction, 'a wide blade with a dignified presence' (身幅が広く堂々とした), as one of Toshitsune's distinctive traits. His work 'well displays the characteristic features of the Masatsune group' (正恒一類の特色をよく示しており), the verdict that recurs across his entries. He stands among the old-Bizen hands at the threshold before the flowering of the Fukuoka Ichimonji, his most decorative pieces reaching a *choji-midare* but never the full clove-flower of the mid-Kamakura. For the collector he is one of the more attainable of the old-Bizen names, which for a late-Heian to early-Kamakura Bizen smith is a relative thing. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and his *Toko Taikan* valuation places him among the higher-ranked old-Bizen hands. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through a single Important Cultural Property, three prewar Important Art Objects, and seventeen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, of which only a part can ever change hands. The Important Cultural Property tachi is held at the Kyoto National Museum, and others are preserved in long-standing institutional collections, the Sano Art Museum and the Mori Shusui Museum of Art among them; among the recorded provenances are the Suwa family, whose tachi descends with a fine itomaki-tachi koshirae bearing the Suwa crest, and the prewar collectors Ide Tokuichi, Otomo Tsunetaro and Yamauchi Toyokage. One signed tachi crossed to the United States in the celebrated Compton collection. A signed, unshortened Toshitsune comes to light only from time to time, and a privately held example is a document of how Bizen forged at its beginnings, the calm root from which its most brilliant traditions would grow.

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