¥850,000

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About the maker

Hojoji Yoshitsugu吉次

On the tenth day of the sixth month of Enpō 6 (1678) Yamano Kanjūrō Hisahide cut a two-body test through a katana signed "Higo no Kami Tachibana Yoshitsugu" (肥後守橘吉次) and recorded the result in gold inlay across three lines of the nakago, an inscription the published sources prize as documentary material because Yamano test signatures on this smith are exceedingly rare. Yoshitsugu was a native of Hitachi who went up to Edo, a smith of the Hōjōji line, the Sōshū-derived school whose root was in Tajima and whose Edo branch he carried into the Shintō period; the published sources transmit him variously as a disciple of Hōjōji Masahiro or of Hōjōji Kunimasa. Around the Kanbun era (1661-1673) he received the court title Higo no Kami, and during the Genroku years he served for a time as a retained smith of the Shimazu house, forging in Kagoshima and exerting, by the sources' account, no small influence upon the Satsuma smiths before returning to Edo. His Hitachi origin and Edo residence are documented: an extant hira-zukuri wakizashi dedicated by Yamano Hisahide to Shiogama Shrine records that the dedicant, a man of Hitachi who reached fifty in Edo, had the blade forged by Higo no Kami Yoshitsugu. His characteristic hand is the gunome the published sources call the most conspicuous of his school. Of his manner they write that "among the Hōjōji line his gunome is the most conspicuous in make, with many works in the juzu-ba style" (法城寺門下の中でも互の目が最も目立った出来で、数珠刃風のものが多く), and of one Jūyō katana that the way connected gunome mingle over a ko-notare base while ashi enter profusely is "precisely Yoshitsugu's distinctive flavor" (正に吉次の持味). The line is built on a small notare with gunome running together into the rosary-bead juzu-ba pattern, small gunome mixing among them; the ashi enter thickly and frequently, the nioi is deep, and ko-nie adheres well over a bright, clear nioiguchi. At his most expansive the nie thickens and strengthens, coarse nie mingling, yubashiri drifting up to present a nijūba-like aspect in places, with fine sunagashi running throughout and kinsuji entering. The bōshi runs straight or suguha-toned to a ko-maru turnback with hakikake, deeply tempered with a long kaeri; on one omote it narrows and rounds into a jizō-style head. The signature itself is part of the recognition: the long mei is cut on the sashi-omote toward the mune in bold, thick chisel strokes. The jigane is a tightly forged ko-itame mixed with mokume, the shinogi-ji at times showing strong masame; the ji-nie adheres thickly in dust-fine particles and fine chikei enter well, a clear, antique-feeling steel the sources single out. Over this jigane the temper carries its full repertory of activity, and the published commentary reads the result against the great Edo masters of the gunome: the style most closely approaches "Kotetsu and Kaneshige" (虎徹や兼重などに似た), and at full strength his nie-laden gunome is judged to "approach the level of Kazusa no Suke Kaneshige" (上総介兼重などに迫るもの), so that within the lineage "his technique stands out as exceptional" (一門中でも技術が卓抜している). One Jūyō katana of Enpō 6 is called, after a midare larger and bolder than his usual work, with the depth of nie and nioi particularly great, "a powerful blade displaying outstanding workmanship" (迫力ある一口で、抜群の出来映えを示している), and a Reiwa-era designation of another describes "a working range filled with spirit beyond his usual level" (覇気に満ちた作域). Within this one prime manner two registers stand out, both keyed to the nakago rather than to a change of style. The first is the signature register: the long mei in its bold thick-chisel cutting, headed Higo no Kami with the Tachibana clan name or with Hōjōji, the subject most often reading 肥後守橘吉次, and a small number of blades from the Kagoshima interval signed instead "Sasshū jū Higo no Kami Tachibana Yoshitsugu" (薩州住肥後守橘吉次), the documentary trace of his Satsuma service. The second is the cutting-test register, conspicuous on his work: the gold-inlaid Yamano Kanjūrō Hisahide inscription of Enpō 6, recording two bodies severed; a Takaya Jintayū inscription of Enpō 5 recording "two bodies severed" (二つ胴截断); and an Aida Danjūrō inscription on another Enpō 5 blade. The published sources note that the Yamano signatures are the rare ones, the names of Takaya Jintayū and Aida Kunishirō appearing more often, and so weigh the gold-inlaid Yamano piece especially high as source material. The tradition that he was a pupil of either Masahiro or Kunimasa is presented by the sources as an open question, neither line settled. The sources place him by his school and his resemblances rather than by contrast. His own grounded tells, the juzu-ba gunome over ko-notare, the deep nioi and thick nie, the bright nioiguchi, the bold thick-chisel long mei, the dust-fine ji-nie over a tight ko-itame, set him within the Hōjōji line as its most conspicuous gunome hand, and the resemblance the judges draw is upward, to Nagasone Kotetsu and Kazusa no Suke Kaneshige, the Edo masters of the nie-laden gunome whose level his best work is said to approach. The Satsuma episode gives him a second standing: the published sources read his Kagoshima years as a documented bridge between his Edo manner and the later Satsuma smithing, and his influence there is the reason a Hōjōji smith of Hitachi origin is remembered in the Satsuma record at all. One of his Enpō 5 katana, the sources note, was made by "special order for a Satsuma warrior" (薩摩武士の特別の注文) and is, "unusually for Shintō work, high in curvature" (新刀には珍らしく反りが高い). Fujishiro rates him Jō saku, and his designated record stands at six Jūyō katana, none carried to a higher tier; all six are katana, five signed and one carrying the gold-inlaid Yamano cutting-test inscription. No early provenance to a daimyō house is recorded for these blades, but the mountings connected to them are documented: the Enpō 5 Takaya Jintayū katana descends with a Bakumatsu handachi koshirae whose unified fittings are by Watanabe Issei Toshinobu, and the special-order Satsuma katana retains its vermilion kawari-nuri Satsuma uchigatana koshirae. None of his work is held as inalienable cultural property, so the whole of his designated output sits in the tradeable tiers; even so, a signed Higo no Kami Yoshitsugu, and above all one bearing a documented cutting-test inscription, comes to the market only from time to time. The gold-inlaid Yamano Hisahide piece is the kind of blade a collector encounters rarely, a record as much as a sword, valued by the published sources for the testing inscription it carries as well as for the powerful gunome it shows.

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