Kantei September 2015

[Gokaden]

And now for the results

 

This sword previously had an attribution to Bizen Kanemitsu. When it was "re-discovered" it was judged by the NBTHK first as Omiya then specified to Bizen Morikage

 

Tanobe Michihiro states on the Saya-gaki:

 

前国長船盛景　大摺上無銘也　
Bizen koku Osafune Morikage, Osuriage Mumei Nari
Bizen koku Osafune Morikage, it is a much shortened, now unsigned blade

 

同工ノ作域ハ廣ク本作ハ最モ変化二富ム山形ノ互乃目乱レ風ヲ示ス ト鑑セラレル
Doko no sakuiki ha hiroku honsaku ha mottomo henka ni tomu yamagata no
Gunome Midare fuu wo shimesu to kanserareru

This sword smith displays various characteristics in his works.

Of all his pieces, this particular blade shows one of the most various style of Gunome Midare shaped hamon.

 

出来宜敷ク制作ハ貞治頃ノ手代ナラン
Deki yoroshiku seisaku ha Joji goro no shu dai narann.
This sword is well made. The sword was made at Joji period (1362-1368)

 

Explanation of the smith, with information from Shijo Kantei No 620 (September, 2008 issue)

This is a golden age Nanbokucho blade. Morikage’s work with signatures which are seen today have early dates from Koan 2 (1362), and later ones from Oei 1(1394), and previously it was thought that this was the same name used by three generations of smiths. However, today there is a strong opinion that there was one sword smith, and he changed his style from time to time. Morikage was active during the Nanbokucho period to the early Muromachi period, and his swords are long with a wide mihaba, and there is not much difference in the width of the blade between the moto and saki. There are O-kissaki tachi, with wide mihaba, and small wakizashi and tanto which have an Enbun and Joji style shape.

 

Around the Eiwa (1375-79) era which is after the golden age of the Nanbokucho era, Morikage’s tachi shapes become a little narrower, and the difference in the width between the moto and saki is smaller, and the kissaki is a little smaller, and typical Eiwa era shapes can be seen. At the end of the Nanboukcho period, his swords changed to have an average mihaba, and there is a difference in the width between the saki and moto areas; the kissaki are chu-kissaki; and the swords are koshisori; the tip has sori which is seen on kosori school type swords.

 

Morikage is not a mainstream Nanbokucho Bizen sword smith, and his jitetsu show a strong itame hada mixed here and there with there with o-hada; they have different colored jifu, and the utsuri is pale or faint. Morikage made all kinds of swords, and this sword’s hamon is predominantly a Kanemitsu style hamon (but his midare hamon are not as smooth as Kanemitsu’s hamon and show a more square appearing pattern). Morikage has few swords from the end of the Nanbokucho period, and typically, from this time swords show shallow ko-notare and ko-gunome mixed with ko-togariba, and the entire hamon appears small or narrow, as is seen on kozori swords.

 

Most of Morikage’s swords have ashi and yo, and the nioiguchi is toned down and has mura nie. Morikage’s boshi are mostly midare-komi, and with a sharp tip. Swords with suguha hamon have straight boshi with a komaru. Not being a mainstream Bizen smith, his work sometimes show rustic ji and ha, and this is also characteristic of Morikage swords in his various styles. His horimono include bo-hi, soe-hi, futasuji-hi, bonji, sankoken, haramiryu style kurikara, and Hachiman-daibosatsu kanji.

 

Morikage’s nakago are kurijiri, and his yasurime are kattesagari. Like before mentioned, people thought the sword smiths who signed Bizen Osafune Morikage were from the Omiya school, and were a father and son Kunimori, and Sukemori, who used live in Yamashiro-kuni Ikumadaigu and then moved to Bizen, and Osafune Morikage was a later generation descended from these two. However, recent opinions are that the Omiya school who came from Yamashiro-kuni, who was called Omiya Morikage and Osafune Morikage were different persons, and that Osafune Morikage was one of the famous Osafune smiths who followed Chikakage, and he belonged to the same school as Yoshishige, and Mitsukage.

 

My personal thoughts:

 

I think the Kissaki must have been reshaped, maybe even twice, thus the lack of Kaeri, the obverse side shows a good Kanemitsu-style boshi (I will try and take a picture of that later)

 

I would not disagree with an attribution to Bizen Kanenaga since the blade without a doubt is a Soden-Bizen product, or his master/teacher Chogi (Nagayoshi), who is another Bizen smith (and peer of Kanemitsu) who is among the Juttetsu and has the reputation of the "least Bizen-like Bizen smith". I would also consider Tanshu Kunimitsu, and students of the Sa-school.

 

 

Aoi-Art has a Den-Kanenaga that I think share some common traits as well:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-den-kanenaga17th-nbthk-juyo-paper

 

Finally, Tsuruta-San also has a signed Morikage for sale:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/tanto-bishu-osafune-morikage

[Kronos]

Aha yes, that is the same sword I came across on sho-shin just as I got to morikage and decided to look up some more examples.

 

As for the kaeri I think there is some variations in morikage's work that I've seen who's period of work lasted over 30 years so not necessarily a much altered kissaki.

[Gokaden]

Look how good you all did, special mentions go to Jean, Kronos, Markus, Curran, you picked well and deserve atari. I think this was a tough one personally and I am very impressed with the responses. Like I said before, keep up the good work

[Brian]

Thank you for the exercise Frederick, most enjoyable.

[Jean]

Frederick,

 

Kantei is nothing without reasonning.

 

Itame/mokume + utsuri lead to Bizen. The nie and the hataraki lead to Soshu. The blade was thus Soden Bizen. Now when? A O kissaki leads to a sword forged (+/-) 1351 and 1365, how do I know it:? the answer is because I have an O kissaki soshu den blade and the NBTHK stated that the O kissaki was specific of this era. Now the smith, deep inside I knew it was not a main line smith but a very good one. A bell was ringing in my mind, it was a smith with "kage" in his name. I had Yoshikage but was not satisfied it was better, I had a self brainstorming LoL.Two names came to my mind: Chikakage and Morikage. I checked Chikakage, it was too early so I went to Morikage.

 

Jussi was very good too, some others coming later checked the answers

 

Along all the Bizen smiths, you must have a fair idea of what to look for to find Morikage, I must confess that at the very beginning I was tempted by Kanenaga.

[Markus]

  On 9/15/2015 at 8:01 PM, Jean said:

Kantei is nothing without reasonning.

 

Me for my part, my bid on Kanenaga was made up as follows:

 

First of all, ths combination of shape, i.e. time of production, and interpretation speaks straightforward for Soden-Bizen. Nice to see that so many went outright for Soden-Bizen. Hats off!

I was then stuck by the boshi, the Masamune-esque boshi with no kaeri and strong tendency to shimaba. Thus I thought smith must be nearer to the initial Soden-Bizen guys and I thought

for a second of Nagashige but the hamon is a bit too wide for a Nagashige, especially towards the bottom of the blade. Also Chogi came to mind but the elements of the hamon feel just

too small dimensioned and densely arranged for him. And from a Kanemitsu, I would have expected a hint more slant and a hint more pronounced, formulated gunome. So I ended up

at either Morikage or Kanenaga what brought me back to the boshi. I just associate a more different boshi than rest of the ha with Kanenaga and a more continuous running of the

hamon into the boshi with Morikage. And in the end, the slight approach to mimigata towards the base made me stay with Kanenaga as he was a student of Chogi.

[Jean]

Thanks Markus, it was very educationnal.

[jason_mazzy]

Wow, your skill level and explanations are insane. I am humbled and must know nothing. This is crazy.

[Jean]

Just considering my first answer Yoshikage, here is a comment from Tsuruta san included in the description of his Morikage tanto for sale:

 

"a new theory that Chikakage and Yoshikage school is close school to Morikage due to the Sakasa Tagane".

[Gokaden]

Would it make any sense to elaborate on the idea that the sword smiths back then more worked like a Guild or a group producing blades? There would be a master of course, and his students making the blades and with the master putting the signature on approved swords. That would explain the variations in the Morikage "sword factory" of the time?

[b.hennick]

Certainly during the Shinto period the Hizen smiths under Tadayoshi worked as a group to produce swords. Smiths needed hammer men and had deshi (students) to cut charcoal and do other tasks. I would think that the lone smith doing everything would be the exception.

[Jean]

It was the same in Koto. Rai Kunitoshi having his sons working for him and signing in his name. Just imagine that in Koto times, Bizen amounted to 50% of the sword production...The best achievement was done by Mino schools which well before our more recent times put in practice the Taylorism system.

[Gokaden]

Some pictures of the obverse side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Curran]

Not quite katana length, but a nice Juyo Morikage up for sale with many of the traits we discussed here and the longer kaeri I was expecting.

http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r134914118

 

 

This was a good kantei offering by Frederick. Thank you.

[jct3602]

Excellent photos. How did you manage to transfer that excellent huge image at the start of this kantei quiz? I have had a great deal of difficulty posting any images on this site that have not suffered greatly through compression at various points in the transfer stream.

 

John

[Jean]

John,

 

These were taken by Aoi Art, they come from their website at the time the blade was sold

[jct3602]

Hi Jean -

 

Thanks for the info.!

 

john

[jct3602]

Hi Jean -

 

The reason I asked was I wanted to post a new topic with a picture (showing interesting nie activity), but when I did the preview of the post, the image that I wanted to send had been reduced from 3.8MB to 87KB, more than a 40-1 compression rate. The resulting image could not be magnified without pixelating and in any event was relatively useless, so I was stuck. (the image showed a stream of nie running immediately below and parallel to the shinogi in the monouchi; I was asking whether it would be considered just an area of thick ji-nie, or yubashiri/ji-utsuri etc.)

 

Thanks much, john

[Brian]

John,

Firstly, no image needs to be 3.8MB. Really, even a huge image can be reduced to about 500K and show lots of detail.

Try and resize the image so that the max width is about 1500 pixels and the dpi is under 120. Will easily upload.

Secondly, when you previewed, you were likely viewing the automatically generated thumbnail....when you post, the thumbnail will open full size when you hover over it.

The forum does NOT resize images. They view exactly the same as the uploaded version (thumbnail apart)

[jct3602]

Thanks Brian -

 

I will try to crop my pictures to the maximum i can. The detail that the new cell phones have on pictures is better than most cameras were 4 years ago; mine has a 16 megapixel camera (still can not handle the autofocus very well).

 

john

[BIG]

Some more, Juyo ...

 

http://www.juwelier-strebel.de/asien-kunst/Japan/katana.html

 

Best Regards

[BIG]

The Morikage is Item 677

 

Best Regards