Excellent and extremely healthy Nanbokucho period Sa Yasuyoshi katana. In Japanese polish with shirasaya and gold foil habaki. Brilliant nie-deki hamon with deep activity. Flowing itame (itame-nagareru) mixed with tighter itame. Excellent, graceful naginatanaoshi sugata with long kissaki. 69cm nagasa. NTHK kanteisho to Sa Yasuyoshi (with a sayagaki to Sa Yukihiro).

YASUYOSHI (安吉), 1st gen., Shōhei (正平, 1346-1370), Chikuzen/Nagato – “Yasuyoshi” (安吉), “Yasuyoshi saku” (安吉作), “Sa Yasuyoshi saku” (左安吉作), “Chikushū-jū Yasuyoshi” (筑州安吉), “Chōshū-jū Yasuyoshi” (長州住 安吉), Sa school, first name Saemonzaburō (左衛門三郎), son of Ō-Sa (大左), he lived in Chikuzen´s Ikihama (隠岐浜) but also worked in Nagato and in Koharu (小春) in Aki province, a tradition says that Ō-Sa also signed with “Yasuyoshi” during his early years but others say that he changed his name to “Yasuyoshi” in later years, however, we know small dimensioned tantō of Yasuyoshi which date around Ryakuō (暦応, 1338-1342) whose niji-mei is different to other Yasuyoshi-mei, so it is possible that they are either early works of this Yasuyoshi or late works of Ō-Sa, some sources even state that Chikuzen Yasuyoshi and Nagato Yasuyoshi were two different smiths, that means the exact affiliation of Yasuyoshi is not certain, we know date signatures from the tenth to the 17th year of Shōhei (1355-1362), there are no tachi but just tantō and hira-zukuri ko-wakizashi extant, most of Yasuyoshi’s tantō are larger dimensioned than those of Ō-Sa what can be explained by the later active period during the heyday of the Nanbokuchō period, the jigane is an excellently forged tame mixed with mokume and bō-utsuri, some blades show itame-nagare and shirake, the hamon is a notare with gunome or a koshi-no-hiraita gunome-chōji that reminds of Bizen Kanemitsu (兼光), the jiba of Yasuyoshi is not that bright and clear as that of Ō-Sa, the bōshi is a pointed midare-komi which can either be interpreted like at Ō-Sa or like at Kanemitsu, the tip of the tang is a kurijiri, the yasurime are sujikai, and the signature is mostly a large niji-mei chiselled below of the ubu-mekugi-ana, the character for “Yasu” tends to a cursive script, it is said that he used the pseudonym Yukioni (行鬼), ō-wazamono, jōjō-saku

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