Soshu, hizen?!

[French nihonto]

Hello gentlemen. 
A few years ago I was looking for a blade from the Hizen school to study, I bought a hozon katana signed Hirofusa in Japan, very old polishing, very sound blade and still thick but Suriage unfortunately, the seller told me that Hirofusa was linked to Soshu, I didn't pay too much attention to it at the time. 
I thought maybe one day I'd send it off to be polished. It's really a study blade. 
I'd put it aside and just taken it out for the usual maintenance, thinking that one day I'd study it.
Now that I'm slowing down my collection, I'm taking the study blades out to study them a bit. 
The hozon paper says "katana hirofusa shintô école Hizen", so I went to look at the indexes. And little surprise, the only Hirofusa that could match is soshu hirofusa, (1532-1555) but from the end of the koto period, so not shinto and not from the Hizen school. Another thing I don't understand is that he was a pupil of Soshu Hirotsugu (1688-1704), obviously the pupil can't have lived before the master, so something doesn't add up. However, what is interesting is that Soshu Hirotsugu is linked to the Hizen school, so we find the Hizen school. I haven't found any other Hirofusa linked to Hizen in any index. 
I need help to sort out this mess.

[French nihonto]

even if the subject is not the blade as such but the blacksmith, and the polishing is old, lack of visibility, I send you some photos. Some nie over the whole length of the blade, quite nice. 
thanks you gentleman. 

max

[francois2605]

Maxime, when I look up Markus Sesko's Swordsmiths of Japan, I can see 4 entries for Hirofusa.

 

Quote

HIROFUSA (広房), Tenshō (天正, 1573-1592), Kawachi – “Sanshū Yoshida-jū Hirofusa” (三州吉田住広房), he

came originally from Mino province and belonged there to the local Oyama-Seki group (小山関), gunome with togariba,

hiro-suguha

 

Quote

HIROFUSA (広房), 1st gen., Keiō (慶応, 1865-1868), Ise – “Gimensai Mishina Hanbei Hirofusa” (義面斎三品

半兵衛広房), “Gimeisai Mishina Hirofusa saku” (義明斎三品広房作), “Seishū Kuwana-jū Gimeisai Mishina Hirofusa”

(勢州桑名住義明斎三品広房), real name Mishina Hanbei (三品半兵衛), he was the oldest son of Ise Hiromichi

(広道), together with his son or student Fusanobu (房信) he focused on the production of gimei which are commonly

referred to as Kuwana-uchi (桑名打), there are excellent forgeries known by him, he used the gō Gimensai (義面斎) and

Gimeisai (義明斎) and there is the theory that these pseudonyms are actually an allusion to his gimei (偽銘), there exists a

joint work with his son with the signature “Ise no Kuni Gimeisai Mishina Hirofusa saku nanajūni-sai nidai Mishina

Hirofusa saku” (伊勢国義明斎三品広房作七十二歳 二代三品広房作, “made by Gimeisai Mishina Hirofusa from

Ise, aged 72, and by the 2nd gen. Mishina Hirofusa), chū-saku

 

Quote

HIROFUSA (広房), 2nd gen., Meiji (明治, 1868-1912), Ise – “Mishina Hirofusa saku” (三品広房作), there exists a

date signature of Meiji 13 (1880), he was not very active because the ban on wearing swords fell into his career

 

and

 

Quote

HIROFUSA (広総), Tenbun (天文, 1532-1555), Sagami – “Sōshū-jū Hirofusa” (相州住広総), student of Sōshū

Hirotsugu (広次)

 

Are you using an old edition of the e-book ?

 

Note: According to ChatGPT, the swordsmith's kanji in the paper are 広総 which would be the 4th entry

[French nihonto]

Thank you for your reply François. I saw well it is 4 Hirofusa. The only Hirofusa linked to Hizen is Soshu Hirofusa. But the dates don't fit. 
What's more, the patina and the several Mekugi Ana of the Nakago don't really make me think of late Edo.
Or maybe it's a blacksmith who isn't in any of the Indexes? I've never had to deal with that. 

[Rivkin]

Here Hozon does unusual thing - identifies the period and the province and the name. This suggests to me its not a Meikan smith, but they felt he is important enough to identify correctly rather than just say "worthy of preservation, shinto Hirofusa".

When did he work - is a good question, boshi and sugata can help.

It could be that one can see Tegai elements here - nijuba etc, but first its done in itame blade, second its structured a bit differently - as a large, well defined gap within the hamon, something which became really popular with Inoue Shinkai, its possible this blade is 1660-1700. 

Also I think one can consider options its a style of Hizen rather than Hizen province proper. 

[French nihonto]

3 hours ago, Rivkin said:

Here Hozon does unusual thing - identifies the period and the province and the name. This suggests to me its not a Meikan smith, but they felt he is important enough to identify correctly rather than just say "worthy of preservation, shinto Hirofusa".

Thank you for your reply.
We agree, it is a bit unusual, my first thought was "a blacksmith absent from the indexes" but modern indexes are now very complete, or a blacksmith who has changed his name. What I don't understand, and which piqued my curiosity, is that in Markus Sesko's index, which we know to be of high quality, Soshu Hirofusa is listed as a pupil of Hizen/Soshu Hirotsugu, but Hirofusa lived nearly 100 years before his master, so you have to admit that it's not easy to take lessons from him  or am I missing a piece of the puzzle? It's an obsession, I like to understand the blacksmith's line clearly. Does anyone have any information or examples of work on these two blacksmiths? 

[Rivkin]

Different people. Long lineage of Soshu Hirotsugu with a typical Sagami Hiro name, and a short lineage of Hizen Hirotsugu which is related to it but Kambun+.

Entirely possible a student of Hizen Hirotsugu - unrecorded Hizen Hirofusa. 

 

Seen dozens of unrecorded smiths, currently own a few. Somewhat more common with periods like 1700 when many smiths were forced to abandon trade and not much information exists about them.

[French nihonto]

Yes, that's certainly the case. I'd be curious to know if there are any archives, studies or indexes written in the Meiji period about the previous period. Not yet fully studied.