HISTORIC TANTO BY SENGO MASASHIGE with Outstanding Mid Edo period Issaku Kanagu Koshirae
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Tracked across 81 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive
About the maker
Muramasa Masashige正重
Masashige worked in Kuwana, in Ise Province, where the published sources record him together with Masazane as a disciple of the first-generation Muramasa, the founder of the Sengo line: "Masashige, together with Masazane, was a disciple of the first-generation Muramasa." The school reckoning runs from a first generation active around Eisho, the name reaching three generations, and Masashige is filed by tradition within that frame as a pupil of the shodai. He leaves no dated blade, so his place is read from style and the manner of signing, and the published commentary takes those works that fall in the Eisho to Tenbun span as the earliest. His standard work is the late-Muromachi hira-zukuri tanto and ko-wakizashi, wide in mihaba and slightly elongated; the few katana are shinogi-zukuri with a high saki-zori. He is Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, and unlike the great Kamakura masters whose names survive mostly on suriage attributions, every one of his designated blades carries his signature. His hand is the Sengo manner turned more open and more strongly in nie. The forging is itame mixed with masame and a flowing tendency, and it stands: the published commentary returns, blade after blade, to the observation that as a whole many of his works show a more conspicuously standing grain (hada-dachi) than Muramasa's, and that compared with the master his ji and ha are the stronger in nie. The temper takes a ko-notare base into which gunome, large and bold o-gunome, box-shaped and arrow-nock yahazu teeth are mixed, the patterns on omote and ura tending to align; ashi and yo enter, the nie attaches thickly, and sunagashi runs frequently. Over a ko-notare base the bold o-gunome is markedly his, and it is the bones of his more flamboyant midare. The boshi runs midare-komi to a ko-maru, often swept with hakikake and pointed on one face. He is set apart from his master not by a single trick but by the proportion of these features: the same midare worked larger, the same nie carried further, the same grain allowed to stand. The jigane is where the school is read. Over a standing itame, often mixed with mokume and flowing grain, the ji-nie gathers thickly and chikei enters, so that the surface reads as the more active of the two Sengo hands. The published commentary is consistent that his is the more openly standing grain, writing of the line that "compared with Muramasa his ji and ha are the stronger in nie." The temper is a midareba over a shallow undulating base, bright and clear at its best, with deep nioi and well-adhering nie; kinsuji thread through it and sunagashi sweeps heavily, at times the nie breaking up out of the habuchi. The boshi is the most variable element, frequently tempered deep into an ichimai-like return, midare-komi, the point constricting and turning back in a rounded form, swept long down the mune. Carving is occasional: one wakizashi carries a grass-script kurikara on the omote and bonji with gomabashi and a lotus pedestal on the ura. Within one Sengo manner the published descriptions read his work in two registers. The first is his standard, orderly hand, the hira-zukuri tanto and ko-wakizashi in ko-notare and gunome, which the commentary calls his typical workmanship; of one such tanto, brought to a calm character in small, even ko-nie without roughness or crumbling nie, it writes that it "reveals a creative domain closely akin to that of his master Muramasa." The second is the wild register that the judges plainly prize: yahazu and angular squared-off teeth enter the midare, the nie thicken and break up, sunagashi runs heavily, and tobiyaki with mune-yaki build toward a hitatsura-like effect, the boshi burning deep and thrusting up. Of one such wakizashi the commentary writes that it is finished "as a bold piece rich in rustic spirit," and of another, "open-hearted in feeling and filled with commanding vigor." A tanto that fully exploits this manner is said to "fully demonstrate this smith's true strengths." The mei is a thick-chisel two-character signature, sometimes a three-character Masashige-saku, cut on the omote toward the mune; one tanto reads its signature Kin Masashige. His distinction from Muramasa is the spine of the school's kantei, and the published commentary names it precisely. He shares with the master the distinctive tanago-bara, the fish-belly swelling of the nakago, so that on form alone the two run close; the earliest of his signed katana, the commentary observes, is the oldest in date among the works of the name and "at first glance appears to be a masterwork by Muramasa." The point that parts them is the nakago-mune. Where Muramasa's is cut angular, Masashige's rounds out fleshily, and the judges name this the principal point of appreciation, returning to one phrase across his designations: "whereas Muramasa's nakago-mune is angular, the distinctly rounded, fleshy mune is the point of interest." To the same end the jigane stands more openly and the nie carry further than the master's. He works alongside Masazane in the same mould, the two named together as the famous pupils of the shodai; within that mould the rounded mune, the standing grain and the stronger nie are his. Masashige is among the more attainable of the celebrated names, and his record is honest about why. Twelve of his blades hold the Juyo rank, every one of them signed and ubu, and none has risen to the higher designated tiers; his Toko Taikan valuation sits in the middle of the field. None of the designated blades carries a recorded daimyo provenance, so the school's reputation rather than a chain of famous owners is what is preserved in them. The corpus is geographically scattered, the recorded holders private collectors across Japan and one in the United States, and the swords themselves the usual Sengo tanto and ko-wakizashi, the hira-zukuri sunnobi blade of late Muromachi. Of the twelve, two sit in the tradeable Juyo tier of recorded whereabouts; a signed, ubu Sengo Masashige is therefore not beyond a serious collector's reach, coming to market from time to time and standing as a faithful witness to the school of Muramasa, its rounded mune and its standing, nie-laden steel telling the pupil from the master.
