Heki Mitsuhira
日置光平 (Heki Mitsuhira)
Swordsmith of the Edo branch of the Ishidō school in Musashi, active in the 17th century.
Profile
Heki Mitsuhira, whose common name was Shichirōbei, is one of the leading smiths of the Edo branch of the Ishidō school. The eldest son of Yamashiro no Kami Ippō (山城守一法) of the Kyoto branch, he worked first in Kyoto and later settled in Akasaka in Edo, where he received the title Dewa no Kami (出羽守). He afterwards took the tonsure, signing as Dewa Nyūdō and with the title Taishin Hōkyō (泰信法橋), and in his last years also forged in Shinshū. He signed with the surname Minamoto (源). He was a contemporary of Tsushima no Kami Tsunemitsu (対馬守常光), the other central figure of Edo Ishidō. Like the rest of the school he revived the Bizen Ichimonji manner: a tightly forged ko-itame hada, midare-utsuri and a broad chōji-midare hamon. A bag-shaped chōji, the fukuro-chōji (袋丁子), is usually taken as his own mark, as against the denser, more even chōji of Tsunemitsu.
Rankings
- Yoki-wazamono (very good) (Kaihō Kenjaku, 1797)
Swords available
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Heki Dewa no Kami Minamoto Mitsuhira
A mid-Edo work of the Ishidō school of Gamō in Ōmi, later moved to Edo; 71.3 cm nagasa, suriage tang with machi-okuri, with koshirae and shirasaya. Mitsuhira belongs to the Ishidō school that originated in Gamō, Ōmi province, and later moved to Edo; this blade is placed in the mid-Edo period, in the seventeenth century, and carries no cut date. It measures 71.3 cm nagasa with 1.0 cm sori. The tang is suriage and shows machi-okuri and two mekugi-ana, as the original seller confirms. It holds NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon papers and comes with koshirae and shirasaya (拵付白鞘入, koshirae-tsuki shirasaya-iri). The original seller's documentation is bilingual and sets the data out in a table, but does not describe the mounting: he places it between late Edo and the Meiji era, with no further detail and no tōsōgu papers of its own.
44.6/100
€12,950
