¥5,800,000

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the maker

Suishinshi Masahide Jirotaro Naokatsu直勝

Jirōtarō Naokatsu signed Jirōtarō Naokatsu in a large six-character mei and dated his blades across the late-Edo decades from Tenpō into Ansei, the earliest of the surviving designated works carrying a Tenpō 2 (1831) date and the latest an Ansei 2 (1855) one. He was a pupil of Taikei Naotane and later became Naotane's adopted son, serving the Akimoto house of Tatebayashi in Jōshū and living at Shitaya in Edo; he first used the name Kazusa Tarō and afterward changed it to Jirōtarō, though the published sources note that no work bearing the Kazusa Tarō signature has been observed. Through Naotane he stands in the Suishinshi line of Masahide, the central school of the shinshintō revival, whose aim was the *fukkō-tō* recovery of the old *koto* traditions. The published sources rank him within that line as the next most capable hand after Naotane and Masayoshi, calling him plainly the smith who follows Naotane in ability (直胤に次ぐ実力者) and (また名工でもある) a noted master in his own right. He died in Ansei 5 (1858), the year after Naotane, at the age of fifty-four. His most characteristic hand is a Bizen-den revival modeled on the old Osafune masters, and the feature that carries it is a *kataochi-gunome* taken from Kanemitsu, the saw-tooth temper the published sources name when they call one katana's work primarily a *kataochi-gunome* (片落ち互の目を主体). Into that base he sets angular and pointed ha and ordinary *gunome*, and the whole runs with a pervasive *saka-gakari* slant, the long *ashi* entering well with *yō* intermingled. The sugata that carries this manner is robust: a wide *mihaba* with thick *kasane*, *funbari* at the base, and an extended *chū-* or *ō-kissaki*, so that on the long Tenpō 13 katana of eighty centimetres the blade has a weighty, martial presence in the hand. The published sources observe that in works of this type his sugata is bolder than Naotane's, the *kataochi-gunome* growing larger, and that the slant and the large *mokume* of the forging are habitual traits he shares with his teacher, what they call the points common to his Kanemitsu copies (彼の兼光写しに共通する手くせ). The *bōshi* enters *midare-komi* and turns with a slightly pointed tendency or a *ko-maru*. Beneath that temper the *jigane* is the constant of the revival. He forges a *ko-itame* that packs well, at times opening into an *itame* with areas of large *mokume* and some *nagare-hada*, the *ji-nie* lying thick and the steel bright. Over it rises the antique Bizen reflection that anchors the whole manner: a *chōji-utsuri* on the earliest Tenpō 14 katana, a *midare-utsuri* standing clearly on the long Tenpō 13 blade, and on others a fainter *utsuri*-like effect over a tightly packed *muji*-toned *jigane*. This is the old Osafune *jigane* deliberately reached for, set lower and quieter than Naotane's, and it is the surest mark of his Bizen-den. The *nioiguchi* is bright throughout, the *ashi* long and frequent, with *yō*, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi*, and occasional small *tobiyaki* where the temper grows flamboyant. On one Tenpō katana the carvings turn unusual for him, a *kurikara* and *suken* carved down toward the tang, and the published sources read that piece as a copy directed not at Kanemitsu but at classical Nagamitsu, perhaps of a now-lost original. The published sources divide his work in two, into Bizen-den and Sōshū-den, and his record carries both faces. The Bizen-den just described is his hallmark, the manner the judges set explicitly against the old Osafune Kanemitsu (古作の兼光) and beside him Kagemitsu and Nagamitsu. His Sōshū-den is the other register, and it is the one the published sources praise most highly: examining it, they say there are works in which he even surpasses Naotane (直胤を凌駕する). In this manner the temper opens into a flamboyant *chōji-midare* mixed with *gunome*, the long *ashi* entering, the *nie* attaching thickly and at places strongly so as to suggest *yubashiri*, *muneyaki* appearing on the back, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running, and the *bōshi* turning *midare-komi* to a pointed return; the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. One Ka'ei 5 katana made at Suibara in Echigo is called the blade in which he fully displays his true strengths in this manner (本領発揮の一口). His mei carries the marks of an Edo professional: an ubu tang filed in *ō-sujikai* with *keshō*, a large six-character signature set near the mune, the longer signatures adding the Shōji name and the Fujiwara clan-name, at times an added note of where the blade was forged. What sets him apart within the school is the same antique Bizen colour the judges name. His Bizen-den is held against Naotane's own work of the type, and the published sources call his best Bizen blade the standout among his works of that approach (同作中の白眉), judged to stand alongside Naotane's masterpieces of the same manner; the difference they draw is that his sugata is bolder and his *kataochi-gunome* larger, the temper set lower to evoke an older atmosphere. His own grounded tells distinguish him from the plainer shinshintō hands: the *kataochi-gunome* taken from Kanemitsu, the *saka-gakari* that runs through half his work, the *chōji-* and *midare-utsuri* in the *ji*, and the bright *nioiguchi* over a thick *ji-nie*. He carries the Suishinshi program forward from Naotane on both its sides, the Bizen revival modeled openly on the old Osafune line and the Sōshū manner the judges hold to surpass his teacher, and in doing so he defines the late-Edo Osafune revival as this school practiced it. For the collector he is a fine late-Edo name held within a single rank. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties, and no Tokubetsu Jūyō; his designated record runs entirely through the Jūyō, with six blades raised to that rank across sessions from the eighteenth in 1969 to the sixty-eighth in 2022, every one of them a signed and dated katana. Fujishiro rates him Jō-saku and the Tōkō Taikan values his work at the upper-middle of the shinshintō field. The recorded blades stay in private hands, the older designations passing through named private owners rather than through museums or shrines, and none carries an old daimyō *denrai*. Because his whole surviving designated record is six signed katana, a Naokatsu of this quality comes to market only seldom, a signed and dated shinshintō blade by the hand the published sources rank next after Naotane, and most welcome when one of his Bizen-den katana in the Kanemitsu manner, with its *kataochi-gunome* and *midare-utsuri*, is the one that appears.

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