The divided-courts war impoverished the court society that had sustained Kyōto’s most refined work. With the last Rai masters the classic line effectively closed, while Hasebe and Nobukuni carried the new Sōshū manner into the capital.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch来国光の重要刀剣、享保十六年、本阿弥光勇折紙付き、『一千貫』の代付け、輪反り風の勇壮健全なスタイルに、変化に富んだ明るく冴えた刃を焼いた傑作です。 来国光は、国俊の子と伝わり、来一門の正系を継いだ名工、年紀作に見る活躍期は、鎌倉末期の嘉暦元年から、南北朝中期の観応二年までとしています。 国宝三口、重要文化財二十四口、重要美術品二十三口を数え、その数は父国俊と並んで同派中突出しており、国宝名物『有楽来国光』を始め、『塩川来国光』、『池田来国光』等々、名物も枚挙に暇がなく、名実共に同派の最高峰鍛冶と言えます。 本作は、大磨り上げ無銘ながら、『伝来国光』と極められた優品、寸法二尺三寸八分強、三つ棟で切っ先延び心、身幅広く、重ねもしっかりとした姿、来派らしい輪反りやや深く付いた勇壮なスタイル、平成二十一年(二〇〇九)、第五十五回重要刀剣指定品です。 また図譜にも記載があるように、享保十六年(一七三一)、十四代本阿弥光勇による折紙が付属しており、『来国光』の極めと『代千貫』の代付けが成されています。 光勇は、本阿弥本家十四代当主で、十三代光忠の子に当たります。折紙は、享保十年(一七二五)~宝暦十年(一七六〇)まで、同年末に五十七歳没。 板目に杢目、流れ肌を交えて良く練られた精良な地鉄は、乱れ映り立ち、広直刃湾れ調で、丁子、小丁子、小互の目、小乱れを交えた刃は、乱れの間隔が密になり、刃縁小沸良く付いて匂い深く明るく冴え、腰元に湯走り状の飛び焼き入り、刃中小互の目足、小足、葉良く入り、金筋、砂流しが掛かっています。 まま見られる穏やかな細直刃調ではなく、焼き幅を広く取った丁子、互の目主体の刃は、同工中、華やかな部類に入る作域で、一見来国行、二字国俊を思わせるような素晴らしい出来映えです。 図譜にも、『この刀は、大磨り上げながらも長寸で、身幅、重ね共にたっぷりとした体配に、とりわけ変化のある刃文が明るく冴えた優品である。同作中では、より複雑な刃取りを形成した一作であるが、中には蕨手(わらびて)丁子等も看取され、折紙に従い、国光の一作風として、貫禄ある出来映えを披露している。』とあります。 蕨手丁子とは、丁子乱れの頭が、蕨の新芽のように、平仮名の『し』又はかぎ状に一方へ曲がっているもの。蕨手焼きとも。来国行や二字国俊、又は備前の光忠や長光に見られます。 近年稀に見る来国光、これは強くお薦め致します。
来国光は、通説に来国俊の子と伝え、鎌倉時代末葉より南北朝時代前期にかけて活躍し、現存する作刀に見る制作年紀の上限は嘉暦元年で、 下限は観応二年である。彼には、伝統的な真の直刃のほか、直刃調に小互の目・小丁子を交えるもの、直刃調に小乱れごころのもののたれ調 に互の目を交えるもの、また互の目主調の乱れのものなどがあって作風が多岐に亘っている。 この刀は大磨上ながらも長寸で、身幅・重ね共にたっぷりとした体配に、とりわけ変化のある刃文が明るく冴えた優品である。大小の丁子に 互の目、尖り刃等を交え、同作中ではより複雑な刃取りを形成した一作であるが、中には蕨手丁子等も看取され、折紙に則り、国光の一作風と して、貫禄ある出来映えを披露している。
NihontoWatchOffered by Samurai Nippon
This piece has sold
Get an email when a new Rai Kunimitsu piece hits the market.
Rai (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1326-1351
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 3%
3 pieces on the market now
The dated works of Rai Kunimitsu (来国光) run from Karyaku 1 (1326) to Kan'o 2 (1351), and a tanto among his Important Cultural Properties is catalogued with an inscription beginning Gen'o 2 (1320). The span carries the Rai school of Yamashiro from the close of the Kamakura period into the early Nanbokucho period. By the prevailing tradition he is transmitted as a son of Rai Kunitoshi, by some accounts a pupil, and the published sources observe that the smith with the most surviving works in the school is Kunimitsu himself. Their constant judgment reaches further: he is "the most versatile smith of the Rai school, the one with the widest working range"[[c:1]]. The notes enumerate that range: beyond the traditional true suguha of the Kyoto line, there are works on a suguha base mixing ko-gunome and ko-choji, works in suguha with a slight ko-midare tendency, works in a notare tone mixed with gunome, and works whose midare is dominated by gunome, spread across tachi, tanto and ko-wakizashi of equally varied form.
His most numerous work is the wide, robust osuriage katana, unsigned yet keeping the deep, evenly arched curvature the published record calls wazori, the chu-kissaki often a little extended. On these blades the temper is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha within which ko-gunome and ko-choji stand apart; ashi and yo enter thickly, and the nioiguchi runs deep, bright and clear. Ko-nie adheres richly, kinsuji and fine sunagashi pass through the ha, and the boshi is sugu with a komaru turnback. The conspicuous presence of gunome within the suguha is the recognition point the sources state outright, the feature that separates his hand from Kunitoshi and Kuniyuki; of one such katana the NBTHK writes that these features "clearly manifest the characteristic traits of Rai Kunimitsu."
The jigane is constant beneath all of his manners: a tightly packed ko-itame under thick, dust-fine ji-nie, with fine chikei woven in and a nie-utsuri standing in the ji, the steel bright and clear. Here and there a softer patch of hada appears, the so-called Rai-hada, which the record treats as a tell of the school rather than a fault. On the Karyaku 2 dated tanto the notes describe the nie-utsuri near the fukura taking on a yubashiri-like appearance, entering as though drooping down toward the tempered edge, an aspect frequently encountered not only in his work but throughout the Rai group.
His tanto carry the two poles of the range most plainly. The small ones with uchizori, often bearing the simple, skillful suken and gomabashi carvings the record calls most frequent in his work, follow the father so closely, down to the hardening over the machi, that they pass at first sight for Kunitoshi; a slender suguha blade of this class is read as early work. The large ones run wide, sunnobi and nearly without sori, and on them he tempers his midare, notare mixed with gunome or gunome-dominant patterns, in nie a step stronger than on his tachi; these, the sources write, resemble the work of his junior fellow pupil Rai Kunitsugu, being "tinged with the color of the Soshu tradition and filled with bold spirit"[[c:2]]. The tanto dated Karyaku 2 (1327) shows the manner already formed, and the largest of the class is the meibutsu Aratami Rai (新身来). The signatures follow the forms: "on tachi the mei is comparatively small"[[c:3]], cut low on the tang toward the mune, while on tanto a bold three-character mei is placed below the mekugi-ana; his character for Rai, the record adds, is cut in a form differing from that used by Kunitoshi. A chronology of the mei is established: those of the Karyaku and Gentoku years have a softness, the enclosing kuni component characteristically rounded, while those of Jowa and Kan'o harden and the enclosure turns angular. The long working span and these changes of style and signature sustain an argument for a first and a second generation, which the Kokon Kaji Meizukushi divides around Gentoku to Kenmu and around Koei; yet the single-generation view remains strong, and the published sources leave the question as one that should await further study.
Set beside his father, the judges' formula is exact: compared with Kunitoshi he yields a little in the point of dignity, but gives the impression of surpassing him in force[[c:4]]. His nie runs somewhat stronger, and the chikei in the ji together with the kinsuji and sunagashi in the ha lend the work its vigor. Beside Rai Kuniyuki he lacks the elder smith's expansiveness: the yakiba sits a shade tighter, ashi crowd in, and the boshi tends toward a point. The wide midare tanto can pass at a glance for Rai Kunitsugu, and there the record draws the line in a single sentence: against Kunitsugu his hardening sits a touch lower, and in the sharp boshi with its thrusting tendency[[c:5]] the individuality of this smith can be discerned. Even his standard suguha can momentarily suggest the Enju offshoot; of one such blade the notes say it can at first glance be confused with Enju, but on careful examination proves a step superior. With Kunitsugu he carries the Soshu-tinged manner that closes the Rai mainline into the Nanbokucho period.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, and 262 designated works stand on record: three National Treasures and twenty-one Important Cultural Properties, preserved as patrimony in museums, shrines and long-held collections. The National Treasures are two tachi held by the Tokyo National Museum, one of them dated Karyaku 2 and handed down in the Tokugawa shogunal house, and the meibutsu Uraku Rai Kunimitsu tanto, named for Oda Uraku and later kept by the Maeda; among the Important Cultural Properties stand the meibutsu Ikeda Rai Kunimitsu and Shiokawa Rai Kunimitsu tanto. Beneath them are twenty-two Juyo Bijutsuhin and 215 blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers beneath them. Signed and unsigned works survive in nearly equal numbers, the tachi mostly osuriage and mumei, the tanto largely ubu and signed. Sixty blades carry recorded provenance, and the roll is of the first rank: a tachi the record calls "a tachi worn by Ieyasu, treasured in the Tokugawa house together with the Honjo Masamune"[[c:6]]; heirlooms of the Kishu, Owari and Mito Tokugawa, the Date of Sendai, the Maeda of Kaga, and the Kuroda, Shimazu, Asano, Hosokawa, Ikeda and Satake houses, and blades that passed through the Imperial collection, one of them a former Gyobutsu presented by Yamagata Aritomo and transferred to the state after the war[[c:7]]; among the Hon'ami appraisals that follow them is an origami of Genroku 3 (1690) by Hon'ami Kotsune valuing one Owari Tokugawa blade at 500 kan. Holders recorded against his blades today include the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the Seikado Bunko Art Museum. For the private collector he is not wholly beyond reach: blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers remain in private hands and one appears on the market from time to time, though for a name of this rank such an appearance is infrequent, and an event when it comes.
Where Kunimitsu stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
30 pieces on the market now
A calm, lustrous steel is the first thing the connoisseur's eye is meant to settle on with the Rai school: a finely forged ko-itame (小板目) worked until it is dense and refined, over which the ji-nie lies thickly in minute particles, fine chikei (地景) enter, and a nie-utsuri rises in the ji. This bright, refined jihada, the surface the trade reads as Rai-hada when its softer, looser patches intrude, is the constant beneath every manner the house produced. The school took shape in Kyoto in the mid-Kamakura period around the workshop of Rai Kuniyuki (來國行), the de facto founder of the line, whose chronology is reckoned from the Koan 1 (1278) tachi of his transmitted son. From Kuniyuki the Yamashiro-den tradition of late Kamakura was built, carried by Niji Kunitoshi, the two-character 國俊, traditionally his son and the nearest of the house to his hand; by the three-character Rai Kunitoshi, the first to crown his name with the character Rai, a practice all who followed took from him; and onward through Rai Kunimitsu (來國光), Rai Kunitsugu (來國次) and the lesser names Kunizane, Tomokuni, Kunihide and Mitsukane into the early Nanbokucho period. Whether the two Kunitoshi are one smith or two remains the classic open question of the school, argued from a span of dated work running about forty years from Koan 1 to Genko 1 (1321). What unites the house is a temper of restraint and activity at once, its life carried in the nie rather than in the height of the pattern. Against Kuniyuki's wide, suguha-toned ha and against the refined chu- or hoso-suguha of the three-character line, the smiths mix ko-choji, ko-gunome and small midare; ashi and yo enter densely, often as the Kyoto-style kyo-sakaashi (京逆足) that slants back toward the nakago, the opposite of the Bizen direction; the nioiguchi runs deep and bright, ko-nie attaches thickly, and kinsuji and sunagashi move through the body of the ha. The boshi is the school's most misjudged trait: a ko-maru drawn out by hakikake, the brushed nie of the point continuing the work of the ji below, often falling into midare-komi with a pointing tip. Muneyaki along the back recurs often enough that the records name it a habit of the Rai hand, and carving in the groove, suken or gomabashi with an added side hi, is a practice the texts call peculiar to Rai work. The strength of the nie within the ha, the utsuri rising as a nie-utsuri, and the kyo-sakaashi are precisely the marks that part Niji Kunitoshi's choji-dominant midare, which the old books said resembles the Bizen Ichimonji, from the Ichimonji itself.
Where the early masters keep this calm Kyoto register, the late line bends toward Soshu-den: Kunitsugu, counted among the Ten Brilliant Pupils of Masamune and named Kamakura-Rai, shows the strongest nie of ji and ha in the whole school, a notare mixed with gunome the earlier Rai never had. For a collector the house style is the recognition tool. An unsigned, o-suriage katana settles to Rai when the packed ko-itame, the fine nie over it, the standing utsuri and the kyo-sakaashi read together; the named smith is then fixed by degree. Niji Kunitoshi and the three-character Kunitoshi, both graded Sai-jo saku by Fujishiro, anchor the canon, the latter unusually approachable because his signed work is abundant and roughly half of it tanto, late Yamashiro work in its purest form. Kunimitsu, the most prolific and most versatile of the house, gives the impression of surpassing his father in force; Kunitsugu, graded Jo-jo saku, is the Soshu-facing edge whose signed tachi are scarce. Mitsukane, the Chudo Rai who withdrew to forge on Mt. Hiei, stands apart as the strong pole, his ji-nie laid thicker than Kunitoshi's or Kunimitsu's and likened upward to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu; the smaller Kunizane, Tomokuni and Kunihide carry the jigane a step into the Nanbokucho. The provenance roll is of the first rank, with blades worn by Ieyasu and held beside the Honjo Masamune, meibutsu such as the Aizen Kunitoshi, the Torikai Kunitsugu and the Midare-Mitsukane, and descent through the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, Uesugi and Shimazu houses. Much sits locked as National Treasure and patrimony, yet the Juyo tier of the major names, and the whole record of the minor hands, remains a goal a serious collector can actually reach. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunitoshi國俊 | 1278-1288 | 99 |
| Kuniyuki國行 | 1259-1260 | 126 |
| Kunimitsu國光 | 1326-1351 | 262 |
| Kunitsugu國次 | 1311-1327 | 65 |
| Kunitoshi國俊 | 1288-1319 | 193 |
Yamashiro in the Nanbokuchō period
The divided-courts war impoverished the court society that had sustained Kyōto’s most refined work. With the last Rai masters the classic line effectively closed, while Hasebe and Nobukuni carried the new Sōshū manner into the capital.
A blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,348 (about 1 in 202) have ever attained Jūyō.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
NBTHK official siteFor one-of-a-kind items such as swords, sword fittings and antiques, other customers may be waiting for the item, so please contact us about a return within 3 days of its arrival and ship it back within 8 days. Refunds are made on the day the returned item arrives.