大橋徳松 Tokumatsu Ohashi
近代切子界において大御所の一人であり、"職人中の職人"と称されているのが大橋徳松です。明治6年に、岐阜の大垣で農家の7人兄弟の長男として生まれ、大阪に出たのちに上京。その後、品川硝子の切子場に伝習生として入所します。当時は、若い仲間たちと一緒に切子の腕を磨くだけでなく、英国から来日したガラス製造分野の専門技師エマニュエル・ホープトマンの下で学んで技術を身に着けました。
日清戦争に従軍したのち、大橋は硝子関係の事業を三度も立ち上げますが、カットグラスの普及がいまよりも一般的ではなかったため、思うようにいかず苦労した時代が続いたと言われています。そんななか、大橋の才能に目を付けたのが岩城硝子。大橋は下請けの仕事を受けながら多くの内弟子職人を育て、いつしか岩城硝子加工部の大看板となります。その実力は、岩城硝子製造所社長の岩城倉之助も「社内の歴代切子師のなかで徳松が最も腕がよかった」と話していたほどです。
大正から戦後までの間は、弟子の小林菊一郎と競い合いながら工芸硝子にも心血を注ぎ、岩城硝子の切子加工に尽力。格調高いカットグラスを数多く世に送り出し、今日でも評価されています。そんな大橋の飽くなき情熱と優れた技術は、堀口切子にも脈々と引き継がれているのです。
写真©山口勝旦『江戸切子』2009年, 里文出版
One of the prominent figures of modern Edo-kiriko, known as “The craftsman among the craftsmen”, was Tokumatsu Ohashi. Born in 1873, the eldest of seven siblings in a farming family in the city of Ogaki in Gifu prefecture, he moved to Tokyo after spending some time in Osaka. There, he joined Shinagawa Glassworks as a glass cutting craftsman apprentice. Not only did he polish his skills of kiriko cutting with other young people, but he also learned techniques under Emanuel Hauptmann, the glass manufacturing technician who was visiting Japan from the UK.
After serving in the First Sino-Japanese war, Ohashi lauched glass related businesses thrice, but had to struggle for a period, since cut glass was not in demand as much as today. It was at this time that his talent was noticed by Iwaki Glassworks. There, Ohashi trained many in-house craftsmen while working as a subcontractor and subsequently became the mainstay of the Iwaki Glassworks glass processing team. Kuranosuke Iwaki, president of Iwaki Glass Factory, said of him that “of all the kiriko craftsmen of our company, Tokumatsu was the most skilled”.
Between the Taisho era and the postwar period, Ohashi was totally committed to kiriko processing at Iwaki Glassworks and put his blood and soul into artisanal glass making, competing with his apprentice Kikuichiro Kobayashi. He produced numerous elegant cut glass pieces, which are highly regarded today. Tokumatsu Ohashi’s unrelenting passion and excellent skills are handed down to us, at Horiguchi Kiriko.
Photo©Katsuaki Yamaguchi, 2009 printed in Japan