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.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchKoto, Yamashiro. Late Kamakura to early Nanbokucho. Saijo-saku. (Accompanied by) Kyoho 16 Honami Koyu origami. Shinogi-zukuri, high shinogi, low mitsu-mune, chu-kissaki slightly extended. There are bo-hi on both sides; the omote is kaki-nagashi, the ura is kaki-tousu. Kitae: itame mixed with mokume and nagare-hada, well-tightened, jinie attached thickly, midare-utsuri stands out, chikei enters frequently, the jigane is refined. Hamon: wide suguha-notare style, mixed with choji, ko-choji, ko-gunome, and ko-midare with dense intervals between the midare; the habuchi is well-covered in ko-nie with a deep nioiguchi, bright and clear; yubashiri-like tobiyaki enter near the koshimoto; inside the ha, ko-gunome-ashi, ko-ashi, and yo enter frequently; kinsuji and sunagagashi are present. Boshi: sugu-notare style, the tip is hakikake and returns in ko-maru. Nakago: o-suriage, saki-kiri, yasurime katte-sagari. Double habaki, gold-clad over copper. Period saijo-kenma. In shirasaya. A Juyo Token by Rai Kunimitsu, accompanied by a Kyoho 16 Honami Koyu origami with a value of "1,000 kan"; it is a masterpiece with a grand and healthy wa-zori style, featuring a bright and clear blade rich in variation. Rai Kunimitsu is attributed as the son of Kunitoshi and was a master smith who succeeded the main lineage of the Rai school; his active period seen in dated works is from Karyaku 1 in the late Kamakura period to Kanno 2 in the mid-Nanbokucho period. With 3 National Treasures, 24 Important Cultural Properties, and 23 Important Art Objects, his numbers stand out within the school alongside his father Kunitoshi; starting with the National Treasure Meibutsu "Uraku Rai Kunimitsu," followed by "Shiokawa Rai Kunimitsu," "Ikeda Rai Kunimitsu," and so on, his Meibutsu are too numerous to mention, and he can be called the pinnacle smith of the school in both name and reality. This work, though o-suriage mumei, is a superior piece with a kiwame of "Den Rai Kunimitsu"; it has a nagasa of slightly over 2 shaku 3 sun 8 bu, mitsu-mune with an extended kissaki, wide mihaba, and a firm kasane; it possesses a grand style with a somewhat deep wa-zori characteristic of the Rai school, and was designated as Juyo Token in the 55th session in Heisei 21 (2009). Furthermore, as recorded in the Zufu, it is accompanied by an origami from Kyoho 16 (1731) by the 14th generation Honami Koyu, providing the kiwame of "Rai Kunimitsu" and a valuation of "Dai Sen-kan." Koyu was the 14th head of the Honami main family and the son of the 13th generation Mitsutada. His origami span from Kyoho 10 (1725) to Horeki 10 (1760), and he passed away at age 57 at the end of that year. The refined jigane, well-forged with itame mixed with mokume and nagare-hada, shows midare-utsuri; the blade, in wide suguha-notare style mixed with choji, ko-choji, ko-gunome, and ko-midare, has dense intervals in the midare; the habuchi is well-covered in ko-nie with a deep nioiguchi, bright and clear; yubashiri-like tobiyaki enter near the koshimoto, and inside the ha, ko-gunome-ashi, ko-ashi, and yo enter frequently, with kinsuji and sunagagashi present. Rather than the calm hoso-suguha style often seen, this blade, centered on choji and gunome with a wide yakihaba, falls into the flamboyant category of this smith's work; at a glance, it is a magnificent achievement reminiscent of Rai Kuniyuki or Niji Kunitoshi. The Zufu also states: "This sword, despite being o-suriage, is long, with a generous sugata in both mihaba and kasane; it is a superior piece with a particularly varied hamon that is bright and clear. Among his works, this is one that forms a more complex hadori, and within it, warabite-choji and the like can be observed; following the origami, it displays a dignified workmanship as one style of Kunimitsu." Warabite-choji refers to choji-midare where the heads curve to one side like a bracken sprout, in the shape of the hiragana "shi" or a hook. Also called warabite-yaki. It is seen in Rai Kuniyuki, Niji Kunitoshi, or Bizen Mitsutada and Nagamitsu. A Rai Kunimitsu of a quality rarely seen in recent years; I strongly recommend this.
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As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
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.
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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.
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。