¥2,500,000

Tracked across 76 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive

Specifications

About the school

Sukehiro School助広派

The Sukehiro line worked in Osaka through the middle decades of the Edo period, its center of gravity in the Kanbun and Enpō years when the city's swordsmiths set the fashion for the age. The first generation, traditionally said to have begun as a *kazūchi* (mass-production) smith of Tsuda in Kokuga-shō, Harima, went to Osaka and studied under the first-generation Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke; from the added inscription *sōhorō* on his signed blades he is commonly called Soboro Sukehiro. Because Kunisuke came from the Ishidō lineage, the first generation's *chōji-midare*, with a tendency toward a tight *nioiguchi* and *ko-nie* mixing *ashi* and *yō*, reads at a glance as Ishidō work, though the brightness of his *nioiguchi* already surpasses that of other Ishidō smiths. The second generation, Tsuda Echizen no Kami Sukehiro, was born in Kan'ei 14 (1637) at Uchide in Settsu, common name Jinnojō; he became his master's adopted son, received the title Echizen no Kami in Meireki 3 (1657), and in Kanbun 7 (1667) entered the service of Aoyama Inaba no Kami Munetoshi, castellan of Osaka Castle. His chief pupil, Tsuda Ōmi no Kami Sukenao of Takagi in Ōmi, later married into the family and carried the manner forward. Across the line the *jigane* is a tightly forged Osaka *ko-itame-hada* in which fine, dust-like *ji-nie* adheres thickly and minute *chikei* enter, the steel reading clear and bright. The second generation's career describes a single arc through the setsumei: early *chōji-midare* in the Ishidō manner, then *gunome-midare*, and finally the *tōran-midare* he originated, the billowing-wave temper for which the name is known. His mature blades open with a straight *yakidashi* at the base and rise into a large *gunome* and *chōji* in the *tōran* sweep, *ashi* entering, the *nioi* deep, *ko-nie* adhering thickly, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running, the *nioiguchi* bright and clear. His *suguha* drew equal regard, set beside that of Inoue Shinkai as the twin peak of Osaka *shintō*: here the *nie* particles fall finer and more evenly than Shinkai's, the temper carries a shallow five-fold *notare* and broadens from below the *yokote*, and the *habuchi* shows minute activity likened to the fine tearing of *hōsho* paper. *Muneyaki* and bead-like *tobiyaki* appear in places. The progress of the signature, from the angular kaku-Tsuda *gyōsho* to the rounded maru-Tsuda *sōsho* adopted from Enpō 2 (1674), itself marks the deepening conviction of his *tōran*. Sukenao inherited the *tōran-midare* faithfully and also worked in *gunome-midare* and *notare-suguha*, his best pieces approaching the master so closely that they call him to mind at a glance. A collector reads a Sukehiro blade by these points: the cleanly packed Osaka *ko-itame* without the least looseness, the *suguha* *yakidashi* at the base, the deep and luminous *nioiguchi*, and, above all, the regular cadence of the *tōran* wave with its evenly seated *nie*. The line carries documentary as well as aesthetic weight. The great Enpō 6 *tachi* called *Murasame*, forged at Aoyama Munetoshi's command and kept by the Aoyama house for rain-prayer rites, bears Buddhist *bonji* and *horimono* attributed to the carver Nagasaka Yū, Hōken; a surviving *gassaku* with Inoue Shinkai, praised in Kamata Gyomyō's *Shintō Bengi*, stands among the essential documents of Osaka *shintō*. Ranked in his own day beside Nagasone Kotetsu of Edo and Shinkai of Osaka, the second-generation Sukehiro gave the *shintō* period one of its enduring signature styles, and the line of his pupils kept the bright Osaka hand and the *tōran* wave in circulation after his death in Tenna 2 (1682).

Tokka Biz

tokka.biz