Sword (Mumeiden Moritoshi)

A Sword Without a Signature, Attributed to Moritoshi

Moritoshi forged blades in Bitchū Province, in what is now western Okayama Prefecture, during the early thirteenth century. He worked within the Old Aoe school, a community of smiths along the lower reaches of the Takahashi River who are remembered today less for the names they cut into a tang than for the bright, clear steel they produced. Signed pieces by Moritoshi are exceedingly scarce; a specialist may go a long career without handling one.

The blade discussed here carries no signature at all. Its official designation reads mumei, den Moritoshi: "unsigned, attributed to Moritoshi." That phrasing is precise rather than evasive. A Kamakura-period long sword often reaches the present in shortened form: tachi worn slung from the belt in the thirteenth century were later cut down at the tang, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to suit the shorter katana carried edge-up through the sash. When the lower portion of the tang is removed, any signature goes with it. What remains is the workmanship, and it was on the evidence of that workmanship that connoisseurs assigned this sword to Moritoshi's hand.

Why the Aoe Steel Gives a Maker Away

The Aoe smiths of Bitchū rose alongside the famous Osafune workshops of neighbouring Bizen, flourishing from the late Heian period through the Kamakura and Nanbokuchō eras. Scholars divide their output into three phases: Ko-Aoe, the "old" Aoe of the late Heian to mid-Kamakura years to which Moritoshi belongs; the middle period; and the late Aoe of the fourteenth century. Several Aoe masters were summoned as rotating smiths to Retired Emperor Go-Toba, who took a personal interest in forging.

Two traits make Aoe work recognisable even without a signature. The first is the surface of the steel, a fine, lustrous grain the old texts call sumihada, often accompanied by a faint, drifting reflection along the body of the blade known as midare-utsuri. The second is the temper line. In Aoe blades the small "feet" of activity that reach down from the hardened edge tend to lean to one side rather than standing upright, a slanting habit that runs through the school's output and that trained eyes look for first. The turnback at the point follows its own quiet pattern as well. These are not dramatic flourishes. They are consistencies, and consistency is what allows an unsigned blade to be placed within a school and then attributed to one smith inside it.

An Important Cultural Property Since 1950

This katana is registered as an Important Cultural Property, designation number 01471. The date attached to it, 29 August 1950, is worth a moment's attention. That was the day the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties came into force, the legislation passed after fire damaged the Hōryū-ji murals the previous year. Many objects that had been listed as National Treasures under the older prewar system were carried over on that date into the new category of Important Cultural Property. A great number of swords received their present status in that single administrative moment, this Aoe blade among them.

What earns the designation is not rarity of name alone but quality of make. An attribution to a smith whose signed works barely survive is only credible when the blade can stand beside the school's documented masterpieces and hold its own. Aoe pieces are well represented among Japan's designated swords, with a handful raised to National Treasure rank and around twenty more protected as Important Cultural Properties; this sword sits within that company.

What to Look For, and Where

The sword itself is privately owned and is not on public display, so the things described above are best appreciated on comparable blades you can actually stand in front of. Aichi Prefecture, where this piece is held, happens to be one of the best places in Japan to do exactly that.

Start at the Tokugawa Art Museum in eastern Nagoya, which keeps roughly a thousand swords from the collection of the Owari Tokugawa house (among the largest holdings in the country), including National Treasures, shown in rotation. A short distance away, the precinct of Atsuta Jingū enshrines the sacred sword Kusanagi; its treasure hall and the dedicated Kusanagi-kan rotate hundreds of blades through the year. Newer still is the sword museum in the city run as Nagoya Touken World, where Important Cultural Properties and a National Treasure short sword are shown together with armour. When you reach the display cases, tilt your head until the light rakes across the steel: the grain and the leaning temper line that identify Aoe work appear only at an angle, never head-on.

For the school's birthplace, the Takahashi River valley in Okayama Prefecture (around Kurashiki, Sōja and Takahashi) is a half-day west by train, a landscape of river plains and old castle towns where the Aoe forges once stood.