Description Moriie
(active 15th - 16th century)
Wakizashi
Steel, 39,8 cm (54 cm with the tang)
Signed 備州長船守家 (Bishū Osafune Moriie) on the tang.
Provenance: Fabrizio Savi collection, acquired in the late 1990s from a private American collector.
The blade has a rich mount consisting of a roughly square tsuba in partially gilded metal decorated along the edge with a stitch pattern, the tsuka covered with fish skin and silk thread, the partially gilded metal menuki shaped as a stylized flower, fuchi and kashira in partially gilded metal with floral motifs.
The name Moriie, associated with Osafune in the Bizen province, identifies a number of artists active between the 13th and 16th centuries.