The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis blade was signed by Izumo Daijyo Fujiwara Yoshitake (出雲大掾藤原吉武). The sword maker’s name Yoshitake lasted three generations, according to available records. This blade was forged by the first generation, who was active during the early Edo period (1658-1681). Yoshitake was the son of Horikawa Kunitake, a descendant of Sanjyo Yoshinori, who was one of the most renowned swordsmiths during the Azuchi Momoyama period. His father and Yoshitake learned sword-forging techniques from Horikawa Kunimichi (堀河国路). Yoshitake belonged to Horikawa school and initially resided in Yamashiro province (today’s Kyoto area). Later on, he moved to Edo city and received an honorable official title of Izumo Daijyo from the emperor. He was promoted to Izumi no Kami later in his career. After he moved to Edo city, he interacted with the swordsmiths who belonged to Hojyoji school, a prestigious school in Edo city, during the early Edo period. It is appraised as a Tokubetsu Hozon Token (特別保存刀剣) issued by NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai:日本美術刀剣保存協会). *Please keep in mind that there are a couple of Kitae Kizu on the blade. Tsuka and Menuki This Menuki features an design of w hawk feather. Hawk is an intelligent bird used for hunting, called falconry. It was famous as a recreation among high-class Samurais. In the old days, it was also familiar with emperors and royal families, so it might be why the hawk was regarded as a symbol of the ruler’s authority. During the warring period, the boy’s success was to become an excellent Samurai; therefore, it has been thought that men (Samurai) and the hawk had a deep connection as a symbol of advancement and authority. Many Samurais loved this design based on that reason. Furthermore, its wings were used for one of Samurai’s primary weapons; an arrow (They put hawk’s wings as arrow’s feather). The arrow itself is reminiscent of victory or defeat, battlefield; it is not difficult to imagine that Samurais also liked the hawk wings attracted to arrows. Still today, various family crests use this bird wing’s motif. Tsuba and Habaki It has the shape of Yotsu-Mokkou (四ツ木瓜). Its origin is the shape of eggs in a nest. When a quince (it is written 木瓜 in Japanese) is cut into round slices, its cross-section looks similar to this shape; therefore, it was named Mokkougata Tsuba (木瓜形鐔). Yotsu-Mokkougata (四ツ木瓜形, a combination of four Mokkou shapes) Tsuba is often seen, same as this Tsuba. As for the design, the motif of this Tsuba appears to be warabite-mon (蕨手文), a decorative design featuring curled, spiral-shaped tips. This motif is often depicted in pairs, placed back-to-back as seen on this piece. In Japan, the pattern has been used since the Yayoi period (c. 300 BCE–300 CE) on pottery, tools, and various ornaments, and it was also found in China as early as the Han dynasty. The term “warabi” refers to the bracken fern, a plant native to Japan with young stems that unfurl in a distinctive spiral shape. Bracken appears from spring to summer in sunny fields and forests and has long been eaten as a seasonal mountain vegetable. The starch extracted from its underground rhizomes, called warabi-ko, is traditionally used to make warabi-mochi, a popular Japanese confection. Beyond its culinary uses, the bracken’s unique form has been appreciated since ancient times as an ornamental motif in art and design. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on May 28th in the 7th year of Reiwa (2025). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Hozon Touken, the blade especially worth preserving for Japanese society.
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At Ichijo Horikawa in Kyoto, from Keicho 4 (1599), Horikawa Kunihiro gathered the pupils whose work the published sources name with his own as the opening of the shinto age. Kunihiro himself reached forging late and by a roundabout road. Born Tanaka and serving as a warrior under the Ito of Obi castle in Hyuga, he wandered the provinces after that house fell, forging where he stopped, his earliest dated blade cut in Hyuga in Tensho 4 (1576); his itinerant Tensho-uchi looked to late Soshu and late Seki, often run toward a hitatsura-like effect over devotional carving. The settlement in Kyoto changed that. There his stated aim, the sources write, lay in the revival of the Soshu-den tradition, the leaning strongest toward Shizu, and around that ideal he trained the men who carried his manner forward: Dewa no Kami Kunimichi, Kuniyasu, Osumi no Jo Masahiro, Echigo no Kami Kunitomo, the elder Kunisada and Kunisuke, with later and minor hands reaching Settsu, Echizen and Edo. Many of them, born like the master at Obi, followed him from Hyuga to the capital. The shared vocabulary is read first in the steel. The school forges an itame mixed with mokume that stands up, the grain raised into the loose, granular surface the commentaries name outright, the zanguri hada particular to Horikawa work, with ji-nie lying thick and chikei entering; on many blades a mizukage rises obliquely from the machi. Over that ground the prime manner is the Keicho-shinto sugata, wide with little taper and an extended chu-kissaki or o-kissaki, the build likened to a Nanbokucho odachi cut down, tempered in a notare and gunome with thick nie, sunagashi and long kinsuji, the nioiguchi often sinking into shizumi. Within that frame the pupils diverge sharply.
Kunimichi runs the flamboyant Shizu copy fully out and turns his boshi pointed in the Mishina manner, the Sanpin boshi the school otherwise does not show. Masahiro keeps the same Soshu-den worked at lower temperature, his temper calm and his mokume conspicuous; Kuniyasu and Kunitsugu stand closest of all to the master and signed for him. Kunitomo turns alone toward late Seki, his gunome round-headed and his chisel the finest in the group, and the elder Kunisada and Kunisuke carry the zanguri steel south into Osaka, the latter keeping the Ishido clove he was born to. Hiroyuki holds suguha over a blackish steel that recalls old Yamato, and the two Echizen Kunikiyo forge a dark, dense hokkoku-gane under a calm chu-suguha. A collector seeks Horikawa because the school stands at a hinge: Kunihiro is read as the first hand of the new-sword age, and the line he taught runs forward into the Osaka tradition through Kunisada and Kunisuke and into Echizen through Kunikiyo. To kantei the work, read the steel first, the standing zanguri surface and the oblique mizukage, then the sinking nioiguchi and the Soshu-revival notare with its sunagashi and kinsuji; the individual hand declares itself in the departures, Kunimichi's pointed boshi, Kunitomo's Seki gunome and compact tang, Kuniyasu's reversed file marks and two-character mei, Hiroyuki's kiri-yasuri. The founder and his closest pupils sit at the top of the line, Kunihiro signing almost everything he made, the large kata-ochi two-character mei beside his long residence signatures; because Kuniyasu, Masahiro, Kunitsugu and Hiromi worked as his daisaku, a share of the blades signed Kunihiro are in fact theirs. Provenance runs through the houses of the founder's own story and of the country, the Hyuga Ito he had served, the Shimazu of Kagoshima, the Imperial Family and Toyotomi Hideyori, with the tachi Kunihiro dedicated to the Hataeda Hachimangu still in the shrine's keeping. A signed Horikawa blade reaches a private collection only from time to time, carrying on its nakago the hand with which the new sword begins. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunihiro國廣 | 1573-1613 | 147 |
| Kunimichi國路 | 1615-1624 | 75 |
| Kunisada國貞 | 1624-1646 | 87 |
| Kunitomo國儔 | 1596-1615 | 27 |
| Masahiro正弘 | 1596-1615 | 16 |
Kyōto: the revival workshop
The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
A Hozon-certified blade judged to show notably superior workmanship and a better state of preservation. The bar is higher: re-tempered blades and most unsigned Muromachi/Edo works are excluded.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges limited to defects caused by shipping (except willful misconduct or gross negligence by the company); customers must contact within 72 hours of receiving the product.