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About the maker

Fukuoka Ishido Koretsugu是次

Koretsugu was born in Kan'ei 5 (1628) and died in the third month of Tenna 1 (1681) at the age of fifty-three, a domain smith to the Kuroda house of Chikuzen who in Meireki 1 (1655) went up to Edo by his lord's order, studied the Bizen tradition under Musashi Daijo Sakon Korekazu of the Ishido line, and after three years returned to Fukuoka. With his cousin Moritsugu he is named by the published sources as a leading master of the Fukuoka Ishido, the line they set alongside the Chikuzen Nobukuni school as one of the two pillars of Chikuzen *shinto*. He worked under the common names Hansanbyoe and Ippei, and because his heir Toshitsugu died before him, Moritsugu succeeded to the main line. His is a revival hand: the brilliant *choji* of the Kamakura Fukuoka Ichimonji, recovered two and a half centuries later in *shinto* steel, and the published sources call him most skilled at exactly that, a smith who "excelled above all in *choji-ba* in the manner of the Ichimonji school, and was extremely skillful" (最も一文字風の丁子刃を得意とし極めて上手). His characteristic temper is a broadly hardened *choji-midare* set high over the *shinogi* in places, mixing *gunome*, *ko-gunome* and pointed elements within the clove heads, with *ashi* and *yo* entering well to produce a florid, varied *midare*. The temper is *nioi*-dominant with *ko-nie* gathered along it, fine *sunagashi* run through, and the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. On the finest work of the two cousins the heads tighten and lean, the *choji* taking on a *saka* or reverse-slanting tendency that the published sources name the group's particular feature, forming the distinctive pouch-shaped *fukuro-choji*, the "unique pouch-shaped *fukuro-choji* in which their special character lies" (袋丁子の形に特色). A second recurring tell sits within the *ha*: a distinctive edge form the judges call *ika no atama* (烏賊の頭), a "squid head" that appears precisely where the hardening reaches broadest toward the *shinogi*, and which they read as a salient mark of the same workshop and lineage. The *jigane* is where the revival is told apart from its Kamakura model. He forges a packed *itame* or *ko-itame* that flows strongly in the lower half and tends almost to *masame*, carrying fine *ji-nie* like minute particles, delicate *chikei*, and a standing *utsuri* that is sometimes a straight, *sugu*-like reflection and sometimes a *midare-utsuri*. This *masame*-tinged steel is the trait he took directly from Korekazu, and the published sources make it the first point by which his work is separated from true old Bizen, together with the tightened *nioiguchi* with *ko-nie* and the *sunagashi*, while noting that on his blades "the appearance of *utsuri* is slight" (映りけは少い). The *boshi* answers the *ha*: deeply tempered, entering in a *midare-komi* to a small round, the tip finishing in *hakikake*. The shape is the Kanbun *shinto* bearing, *shinogi-zukuri* with *mitsu-mune*, a rather wide *mihaba* with clear taper, a thick *kasane* and usually a shallow *sori*. His surviving record reads as one revival manner held across a spread rather than as separate periods, and the judges draw the variation themselves. Several of his dated blades are noted as departing from the school formula: although Fukuoka Ishido generally shows the *saka* inclination in its *choji*, on these pieces that tendency is not conspicuous, and they differ somewhat in character. On just such a blade the school is confirmed not by the reverse *choji* but by the *masame*-tinged *jigane* with standing *utsuri*, the broad *yakihaba* reaching toward the *shinogi*, the deep *boshi* and the *ika no atama*, the points the sources call the salient features of the same hand. The work is uniformly signed, all seven recognized blades carrying a long signature cut with a thick chisel in a distinctive hand on the *omote*; several add a date and one a *kinzogan* date of Kanbun 11, so that a smith of the *shinto* age is read off his own inscriptions rather than off attribution. The largest is a votive *katana* of Kanbun 6, exceptionally wide and long with deep *sori*, which the judges hold a typical work showing no lack of control despite its scale. Within the line his place is set by contrast with his cousin rather than by any borrowed comparison. Where Moritsugu, working in the same Kanbun *shinto* period, often kept the deeper *sori*, Koretsugu by contrast more often made the shallow Kanbun construction, the difference the published sources single out for attention, observing that he "frequently made constructions with the shallow *sori* typical of Kanbun-shinto" (反りの浅い造込みのものが多い). His teacher Korekazu, the Musashi Daijo of the Edo Ishido, gave him the *masame*-tinged *jigane* and the *saka*-leaning *choji* that distinguish the whole revival from the Kamakura Ichimonji it looks back to. Against true old Bizen his work is told by the fine *masame*, the tightened *nioiguchi* with *ko-nie* and the *sunagashi*; against the showier Osaka Ishido it keeps the Chikuzen *jigane* and the deep-tempered *boshi*. The published sources affirm his finest as a representative work of the school and "a masterpiece among his works" (同作中の傑作の一口), naming one "a typical work of Chikuzen Ishido" (筑前石堂の典型作). For the collector Koretsugu is a Juyo-rank *shinto* name rather than a designated-treasure one. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs entirely through the Juyo Token rank, seven signed blades passing the shinsa across sessions from the thirteenth to the fiftieth. Provenance is thin in the surviving record, and no museum or daimyo house can be grounded on his blades, though one Kanbun 9 *katana* was made on commission for a member of the Kozai clan of Sanuki, retainers of the Hosokawa since the Nanbokucho period, and survives with a black *kawari-nuri* *uchigatana* *koshirae* whose fittings are given to Yanagawa Naoaki. With every recorded example signed and most long held, a Koretsugu reaches the market only from time to time, and chiefly his shallow-*sori* Kanbun pieces rather than the grand votive blades. When one does appear it is a self-documenting *shinto* Ichimonji revival in good order, the kind the judges call a blade "in which Koretsugu's true strengths are fully exhibited" (是次の本領が遺憾無く発揮された一口), and a clear window onto how the Fukuoka *choji* was forged again in the Kanbun age.

Touken Matsumoto

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