古刀
SOLD
Tracked across 81 dealers worldwide · price history · sold archive
Specifications
34.2 cm
0.4 cm
2.9 cm
About the maker
Soshu Hiromitsu廣光
Following Sadamune, the two smiths who emerged in Soshu in the Nanbokucho period were Hiromitsu and Akihiro; nearly every NBTHK commentary on his blades opens with that sentence. A disposition toward *hitatsura* can already be found, though rarely, in Sadamune, where it amounts to no more than an artless prominence of *yubashiri*; with Hiromitsu and Akihiro the sources see "the completion of the full-fledged hitatsura hamon" (本格的な皆焼の刃文の完成を見), an invention that influenced the later Sagami smiths and swordsmiths of other provinces alike. The two "developed an innovative and lively style" (斬新で賑やかな作風を展開した). Hiromitsu stands in the Soshu mainline descending from Shintogo Kunimitsu, after Masamune and Sadamune; the Muromachi genealogies divide between the two schools, and the prevailing reading assigns a first generation to Masamune's circle and a second, the master of the Bunna through Joji years, to Sadamune's. Nearly everything that survives under his name is the *hira-zukuri* ko-wakizashi and *sunnobi* tanto of the Enbun and Joji type, wide in *mihaba*, thin in *kasane* and shallow in *sori*; reliably signed *tachi* are exceedingly rare. He tempers a *midare* fronted by *choji* and mixed with *gunome*; within it appears his round-headed clove, the *dango-choji* (団子丁子), the form the published sources single out as his individuality. *Tobiyaki*, *yubashiri* and *muneyaki* spill across the *ji* until the whole blade is fired as *hitatsura*. *Nie* lies thick, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through the *ha*, and the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. The *boshi* enters as *midare-komi*, rising to a point or breaking into a flame-like form, and returns deeply, often burning down the *mune*. An Enbun 5 (1360) wakizashi of the Bizen Ikeda line is called "typical and outstanding" (典型且つ出色), its individuality read in the *dango-choji*. The jigane beneath this temper is *itame*, tending overall to stand, with thick *ji-nie* and frequent *chikei*, at times mixed with *jifu*. Of a Bunna 5 (1356) wakizashi the sources write that the activity within the *ha* and the character of the *nioiguchi* carry "an atmosphere recalling Masamune in a single thread" (一脈正宗を彷彿とさせる). In places an exceptionally bright *nie* breaks down into the *ji*, and the *yakiba* often widens toward the upper half until the temper fills the whole surface. His dated work opens with Kanno (1350) and runs through Bunna, Enbun, Koan and Joji. Akihiro's dates begin only at Enbun and continue past him into Oan, Eiwa, Koryaku, Shitoku and Meitoku, eras never seen on Hiromitsu, so his seniority is held certain. He cuts the long *mei* Sagami no kuni junin Hiromitsu (相模国住人広光) with the date written out in full, and the published record is categorical that he never signs Soshu ju (相州住), Akihiro's form. A rare two-character *mei* stands beside it, undated and more angular in its chiselling; the Seikado Bunko, the Nezu Museum and the Kurokawa Institute each preserve one, with *suguha* pieces of quality among them, and Honma left the generational question open, asking whether "the two-character signature might be the first generation and the long signature the second" (二字銘が初代であり、長銘が二代であろうか). A quieter register also runs beside the flamboyant standard. The Bunna 2 (1353) tachi of the Echizen Matsudaira line, the sole surviving example of his title *mei* Saemon-no-jo, shows a *midare* wholly small in pattern with few *yubashiri* and *tobiyaki* and inconspicuous *muneyaki*; the sources describe "a calm hitatsura" (穏やかな皆焼) imparting "a somewhat archaic feeling" (やや古調な感を懐く), and a *nie-utsuri* stands out in its *ji*. The discriminators against Akihiro are concrete. The signature rule is one; the build is another, for Akihiro's *taihai* more often runs smaller, read as the chronological transition of shapes, while a Joji 3 (1364) wakizashi of the Kishu Tokugawa line is described as "larger even than usual, with real presence" (常にも増して大振りで貫禄があり). The *dango-choji* is the third. Against the contemporaneous *hitatsura* of the Kyoto smiths the line is structural: his favored temper "differs from the Kyoto Hasebe school in that choji forms its main body" (京の長谷部派とは異なり丁子が主体となっている), where Hasebe Kunishige and Kuninobu work theirs over a base of small *notare*. In Bizen terms, the sources note, he is an exact contemporary of the so-called Enbun Kanemitsu. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. Forty-five designated works are on record: two Important Cultural Properties, nine Tokubetsu Juyo, twenty-three Juyo and twelve Important Art Object certifications, the tiers in part overlapping, for the Saemon-no-jo tachi and an Enbun 3 wakizashi, its stolen inscriptions restored as *shumei*, both later advanced to Tokubetsu Juyo. Signed pieces dominate, thirty-three against ten unsigned, nearly all dated, anchoring his chronology era by era. Three named blades stand in the record: the meibutsu Okurikara Hiromitsu (大倶利迦羅広光) of the Date family; the Kikkawa family blade styled "Furiwakegami Masamune" (振分髪正宗) since the Edo period, re-judged to Hiromitsu at its certification; and the Uesugi house tanto styled Kashagiri (火車切). His provenance runs through the daimyo houses, the Kishu Tokugawa, the Echizen Matsudaira of Fukui, the Bizen Ikeda, the Satake, the Nanbu, the Date and the Uesugi, with the Mitsui among the modern collectors. The two Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, and several of the finest remaining pieces rest in the Nezu Museum, the Seikado Bunko, the Sano Art Museum and the Kurokawa Institute. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokuju and Juyo tier, thirty-two blades of partially recorded whereabouts, most of them held rather than traded; a signed and dated Hiromitsu ko-wakizashi comes to market only rarely, and when one does it is among the few chances the field offers at the perfected *hitatsura* of Soshu.
