SIGNED DOSHU NO JU SA YUKIHIDE AND DATED 1866, LATE EDO PERIOD

In contrast to the many early swordsmiths represented in this catalogue, the career of Sa Yukihide can be traced in some detail. A native of Chikuzen province in Kyushu, like many very late Edo-period craftsmen, he regarded himself as the inheritor of an immensely long and unbroken tradition of style and workshop practice, in his case calling himself 'the thirty-ninth user of the character Sa'. Travelling up to Edo from his birthplace he became a pupil of Shimizu Hisayoshi, himself a disciple of Hosokawa Masayoshi, and in 1846, he moved to the island of Shikoku and became a retained swordsmith of the Yamanouchi family of Tosa province. In 1862 he returned to Edo, taking up residence at the Yamanouchi yashiki [urban mansion] but after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 - an event which would later virtually put an end to the sword industry - he went back to Tosa, where he died in 1885 at the age of seventy-four by the East Asian count, putting his birthdate at around 1812. In his work he attempted to emulate the blades of Go Yoshihiro, Kotetsu and Inoue Shinkai (see lot nos. 11-12).This blade, forged during the Edo phase of Yukihide's career, is a classic example of the suguha hamon.