¥3,900,000

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About the maker

Yoshioka Ichimonji Sukemitsu助光

Sukemitsu held the court title Sakon-no-shōgen and signed in full beneath the school's single character *ichi*: Bizen no Kuni Yoshioka-jū Sakon-no-shōgen Ki-no-Sukemitsu. He is the leading smith of the Yoshioka Ichimonji, the Bizen Ichimonji branch that, as the published sources put it, prospered from the end of Kamakura into the Nanbokuchō period second only to the Fukuoka Ichimonji. The school takes its name from the character *ichi* cut at the head of the tang, and its representative hands all share the *suke* element, Sukemitsu named first among Sukeyoshi, Sukeshige, Suketsugu and Sukeyoshi. His dated works run through Einin, Gen'ō, Genkō, Karyaku and Gentoku, a span of roughly the last Kamakura decades, and several survive with the long signature still legible. His hand has two faces, and the published sources are careful to keep them apart. The fundamental Yoshioka manner is the calmer, smaller-scale temper. On the long-signed tachi the *jigane* is an *itame* mixed with *masame* in which the *utsuri* stands, and over it he sets a *suguha*-toned line into which *ko-chōji* and *ko-gunome* are intermingled, *nie* adhering, the *bōshi* running straight to a *yakitsume* finish. The judges read one such blade as displaying the fundamental Yoshioka workmanship, 「吉岡本来の出来を示したもの」, the *suguha*-toned edge with its small *chōji* and *gunome* the work that, in their words, clearly demonstrates the Yoshioka Ichimonji style. This is the register that distinguishes him from his parent school: not the towering clove-flower of Fukuoka but a quieter, more closely worked line. The *jigane* is the constant across his work. A well-forged *itame*, at times tightening into *ko-itame* and mixed with *mokume*, carries *ji-nie*, frequent *chikei* on the finest pieces, and a clear *midare-utsuri* that the published sources note standing out on signed and attributed blades alike. On one tachi the reflection begins low as a straight *utsuri* along the *ha* and breaks into a *midare-utsuri* above, the Yoshioka *jigane* he shares with the school. The *nioiguchi* is bright and clear, the temper carried in *ashi* and *yō* rather than in great clusters, and a *bō-hi* is commonly carved through. The published commentary calls one signed tachi sound in both *ji* and *ha* and valuable for its inscription, 「地刃共に健全で出来がよく、銘は好資料」. The other and rarer face is the high, flamboyant *chōji-midare*. The judges record that some of his blades retain comparatively showy features that, at a glance, can be mistaken for the Fukuoka Ichimonji with their large-pattern *chōji*, 「一見福岡一文字派に紛れるような大模様の丁子」, even as they hold that his typical work is the more modest line, 「乱れの中に互の目が目立ち、やや小出来となるもの」, in which *gunome* stands out within the *midare*. The kinzōgan-mei katana, shortened and unsigned but gold-inlaid to him by the Honami house, shows this brilliant face: a dense *ko-itame* with a standing *midare-utsuri* and a *chōji* mixed with *gunome*, the published sources calling its workmanship 「華麗な丁子の出来が頗る見事」. The *den*-attributed mumei katana goes further still, an *itame* mixed with *mokume*, very fine and thickly applied *ji-nie* with abundant *chikei*, over which the *chōji-midare* mixes *gunome* and *togariba* into a flamboyant pattern with fine *tobiyaki*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi*, the *yakihaba* narrowing toward the *monouchi*. What sets Sukemitsu apart within his own lineage is exactly this division the judges draw, and the way both faces rest on the same Yoshioka *jigane*. He is held apart from Fukuoka by scale rather than by kind: his bright *midare-utsuri* and his small, *gunome*-marked *chōji* are the Yoshioka norm, and only rarely does he reach back toward the large-pattern manner of the parent house. On the *den* mumei katana the published sources weigh the workmanship of *ji* and *ha* and judge the old attribution persuasive, appraising the blade a superior work of Yoshioka Ichimonji, 「吉岡一文字の上作」, the refined and meticulous forging especially noted. His dated and signed tachi anchor that standard for the school, the fixed points against which the mumei attributions are measured. Sukemitsu's record reaches the highest ranks of the designation system. A signed naginata dated Gen'ō 2 (1320), surviving *ubu* and transmitted through the Maeda house of Kaga, is a National Treasure, and his work is further held among the Important Cultural Properties, including a Genkō-era signed tachi and the kinzōgan-mei katana polished by Honami Kōtoku. Five blades carry the Jūyō rank, among them the brilliant kinzōgan-mei katana with its mid-Edo gold *nashiji* mounting bearing *aoi-mon* crests, and several preserve old daimyō provenance, with the Tokugawa Art Museum among the institutions holding his work and names such as Tokugawa Iemitsu, Abe Tadaaki and the Maeda family in the recorded chains. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are heritage held in trust, not blades a collector encounters; the designated Jūyō pieces are few, and of recorded whereabouts most are long held rather than traded. A signed Yoshioka Ichimonji Sukemitsu coming to light is a landmark when it happens, a document of how the Yoshioka kept the Ichimonji manner alive into the close of the Kamakura age.

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