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About the maker

Aoe Moritsugu守次

Moritsugu is an Aoe smith of Bitchū, his name traditionally derived from Yasutsugu, the founder of the Aoe lineage, and carried by several hands from the Ko-Aoe period down into the Nanbokuchō. The published sources are careful with the name: the Meikan lists more than one smith called Moritsugu even within Ko-Aoe, and the name passed on afterward, so that surviving works range from blades judged to the end of Kamakura through dated pieces of the Bunwa and Enbun years in the middle of the Nanbokuchō. His record falls into two faces, an early powerful tachi and a group of dated late tantō, and of the latter the commentary on one Enbun piece says plainly that this is the work of the last bearer of the name, 'the Moritsugu who brought that tradition to its close' (本作はその最後をかざる守次の作である). The hand that runs through both faces is a calm, bright *suguha*. On the late tantō the temper is *nioi*-dominant and clear, the *nioiguchi* drawn tight, *ko-nie* gathered along it; one Bunwa tantō the published record calls a textbook of Nanbokuchō Aoe *suguha* work. On the early tachi the same line is a *suguha* base into which *ko-gunome* and *ko-chōji* are set, *ko-ashi* entering, fine *kinsuji* running, the *nioiguchi* bright. The judges single out this quality above all: the way a tight, bright *suguha* is tempered to produce a deep *shio-ai*, a salt-like depth in the hardened edge, they call 'superb' (塩相の深い様は見事であり), and from it 'the high technical level of Moritsugu can be perceived' (守次の技術の高さが窺い知られる). The *jigane* is the Aoe steel at two strengths. On the early two-character tachi it is a *ko-itame* mixed with *ko-mokume*, the grain finely standing, *ji-nie* adhering throughout in fine particles, *chikei* entering, and from the *hamon* boundary a somewhat faint *midare-utsuri* rising, the most refined *jigane* in his record. On the dated tantō the forging stands a little more, an *itame* that at times flows, mixed with *jifu* and *chihan*-like mottling, with a clear *utsuri* over it. The *bōshi* on both is essentially straight, turning back in a *ko-maru*, sometimes with *hakikake*, and on the tachi a *bō-hi* is carved through into the tang. Within the dated work the published sources draw the period's central observation. The Aoe of this generation, they note, shows little conspicuous *nie* and becomes for the most part *nioi-deki*, and in it 'there are two manners, the traditional *suguha* and a splendid *saka-chōji* not seen before' (伝統的な直刃出来と以前には見られなかった華やかな逆丁子の刃文の二様がある). Moritsugu's own work belongs to the first of these, the traditional *suguha*; the second, the reverse-slanting line, touches his hand only in the *saka*-inclined *gunome* of his Jūyō Bijutsuhin tantō, where the temper is a moist *nioi-deki* with reverse-leaning *gunome* mixed in. His shapes are of their moment: the early tachi wide and powerful with high *koshizori*, thick *kasane* and *funbari* in the Kenmu manner, the tantō *hira-zukuri* with a *sun-nobi* feeling or a faint *uchizori*, and one rare *shōbu-zukuri* piece the sources note as unusual for the smith and the school alike. Several of the tantō carry a *sankō-ken* or *goma-bashi* devotional carving in the groove. What sets him within the school is the very thing the judges name. Against the flamboyant *saka-chōji* the late Aoe was then inventing, Moritsugu keeps the school's older line, a bright *midare-utsuri* over a fine *ko-itame* and a tight, luminous *suguha*. His powerful early tachi belongs to the classic Aoe manner of *suguha* and *utsuri*, while the dated tantō bring the long Moritsugu name to its end; one of his blades is judged so close in workmanship to the school's standard that its claim rests on era and lineage as much as on a personal tell. The strongest external anchor is documentary: the published sources find that the manner of cutting the signature on his finest tachi matches exactly the hand of the tachi long held by the Uesugi family, the Important Cultural Property known as the Rinpō Tachi, differing only in that his *bō-hi* carried through the tang forced the signature onto the *hira-ji* rather than toward the *mune*. For the collector he is a rare and quiet name. Fujishiro grades him Jō saku; the Tōkō Taikan values his work in the upper-middle range. He has no National Treasures. His record runs instead through the Important Cultural Property tier, three blades among them, one Special Jūyō tachi and four Jūyō, with a single prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin tantō, so that nine designated works stand on record. The most storied of them, the Rinpō Tachi descended through Uesugi Kenshin and his house, is preserved in the Tokyo National Museum, patrimony rather than property; the Jūyō Bijutsuhin tantō was certified in the Suzuki collection of Yamagata. Of the remainder the Special Jūyō and Jūyō tachi are the pieces that survive in private and recorded hands, and even these come to light only seldom, since extant Moritsugu of this period are few. A signed Aoe Moritsugu reaching a collector is an uncommon event, and a document of how the Aoe school carried its old *suguha* down to the close of its line.

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