NihontoWatchThis blade was signed by Bizen koku Osafune ju Shigezane (備前国長船住重真), who was active during the Shochu-Enbun era (1324-1359: The end Kamakura-Mid Nanbokucho period) in Bizen province (today’s Okayama prefecture). The back of the singature says that the blade was forged during the Shochu era (1324-1326). He belonged to Hatakeda Mori schoo, a branch of Osafune (長船) school. It is said that Shigezane was an apprentice of Kagemitsu and the younger brother of Motoshige, who was one of the most prominent figures in the school during that time. According to one theory, Shigezane later became an apprentice of Soshu Sadamune. When Shigezane was active in the Nanbokucho period, Japan was tumultuous because the imperial court was split into two sides(south and north). There were many conflicts, and many Samurai were deployed. We assume he must have dedicated himself to forging high-quality blades for those Samurai who fought in battles. It is said that Osafune school was founded by Mitsutada (光忠), who was active during the mid-Kamakura period. Bizen Osafune school was the biggest one of all other schools in Bizen province, and they received many orders from feudal lords or renowned Samurai. They were called Osafunemono and beloved by Samurai warriors. Among the swordsmiths who belonged to this school, Nagamitsu, Sanenaga, and Kagemitsu are known as Osafune Sansaku, the three renowned Osafune swordsmiths. There are also four other prominent swordsmiths who were from Bizen Osafune school. They are called Osafune Shiten-no, the four masters of Osafune school. Their names are Nagamitsu, Kanemitsu, Nagayoshi, and Motoshige. BIZEN is located near the Chugoku Mountains, where iron sands, one of the essential materials for making Japanese swords, were abundant. Furthermore, BIZEN swordsmiths had close access to Yoshi River, where they could find water and charcoal. This geological location contributed to the swordsmiths forging high-quality refined blades. We presume BIZEN was quite active in sword-forging from ancient times. It is said that BIZEN DEN was created by groups of swordsmiths there during the late Heian era (Late 12th century ). These ancient swordsmiths in Bizen province are called Ko-Bizen (Old Bizen) swordsmiths. By inheriting the sword forging techniques from Ko-Bizen swordsmiths, the Bizen Osafune school flourished from the mid-Kamakura period. *Please keep in mind that there is a couple of Kitae Kizu on blade. Fuchi-Kashira The theme of this Fuchi-Kashira is the Aoi-Karakusa (葵唐草). Aoi (Asarum caulescens, 葵) is a plant pattern in which each stem branches and has characteristic heart-shaped leaves. As its leaves have a habit of always facing the sun, and the word “Aoi” is taken as “Aogu (仰ぐ, looking up)” for the sun, people thought the Aoi pattern would bring good fortune. Karakusa (Arabesque) is a pattern in which stems and leaves of vines are twined and make curves. Since ivy has a strong vitality and grows up without interruption, people regarded this design as a symbol of prosperity and longevity. Vine is called Tsuru (蔓) in Japanese, and it has another pronunciation; “Man.” There is a word 万 (it is also read Man), which means ten thousand. In the Karakusa pattern, leaves and vines are connected like Obi (帯, belt). The word “帯” can also be read “Tai.” Due to its pronunciation, the term “代 (Tai)” is associated. From this word-association game, an idiom 万代 is associated, and it means a thousand generations. In other words, we could imagine that people used this design wishing prosperity and longevity for their clans for a long time. Thus, the Aoi-Karakusa pattern, which combines the motifs of these plants that were mentioned above, has long been cherished in Japan as a symbol of good fortune. Tsuka and Menuki The motif of this Menuki is a family crest called Tokugawa Aoi (徳川葵). Tokugawa Aoi features three Asarum caulescens leaves arranged with their tips facing inward, encircled by a normally thick round border. It is the family crest of the Tokugawa clan (徳川家), the ruling shogunate family of the Edo period. It also serves as the divine crest (神紋) of Nikkō Tōshōgū (日光市日光東照宮), the temple crest (寺紋) of Zōjō-ji Temple in Tokyo (東京増上寺), and of Seiryō-ji Temple in Kyoto (京都市清凉寺). Tsuba and Habaki The motif of this Tsuba is Kiri-Houou (桐鳳凰). The Kiri (paulonia, 桐) pattern is generally composed of three standing straight inflorescences and three leaves. The number of flowers that are blooming at each inflorescence means the ranks of this design. It is also famous that one of the most popular Samurais in Japan: Toyotomi Hideyoshi used the Kiri pattern for his family crest. According to a theory, Hideyoshi used Omodaka (沢瀉, arrowhead) pattern as his family crest. However, Oda Nobunaga, a well-known military commander in the Warring States period, permitted Hideyoshi to use Kiri design. This plant pattern was once used by the imperial family and national leaders of the time. Today, this plant pattern is used as the crest of the Japanese Government. According to a tradition, Houou (鳳凰, Fenghuang, a kind of sacred beast) rests its wings at the paulownia tree; therefore, it has come to be regarded as a holy plant. Houou (Fenghuang) is a member of four fantasy animals, which is called “Shirei (四霊)” with Kirin (麒麟, Qilin), Kame (亀, Turtle), and Ryu (龍, Dragon), and it is a god beast looks like a combination of chicken and peacock. Houou was considered an auspicious sign in ancient China, and it was believed that Houou would show up when the brilliant emperor appeared. People appreciate its graceful shape in Japan. Saya The saya appears to be made in the kairagi samegawa togidashi-zaya style(梅花皮鮫皮研出鞘), which involves wrapping the scabbard with the skin of a kairagi-zame (a type of shark known for its distinctive bumpy texture). After applying lacquer over the sharkskin, the surface is polished to reveal the unique pattern beneath. This technique highlights both the natural texture of the skin and the refined craftsmanship involved. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on March 6th in the 25th year of Heisei (2013). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Hozon Touken, the blade especially worth preserving for Japanese society.
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Osafune (Bizen), Motoshige line · Bizen · around 1327-1358
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 10%
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Shigezane is an Osafune swordsmith of the Motoshige line, working from the close of the Kamakura period into the Nanbokucho, whose earliest dated work is a slightly elongated tanto of Karyaku 2 (1327) and whose latest reaches Enbun 4 of the Nanbokucho, a documented span of thirty-three years. The published sources record him by old tradition as the younger brother, or in another account a pupil, of the first-generation Motoshige, and they place his hand squarely within the Soden-Bizen of the late Osafune workshop. His is not the brilliant clove-flower of the older Bizen; it is the quieter, more angular manner of the Motoshige group, read by the published commentary as close to Motoshige with the character of Aoe mixed in. Authenticated signed examples are exceedingly few, so much of what survives under his name is judged from the bearing of the blade and the structure of its temper rather than from a signature.
The feature that most distinguishes his work is the temper. Over a suguha-toned base he sets angular gunome, the squared shoulder that reads as Motoshige-line rather than the rounded clove of Fukuoka, joined by the kataochi-gunome that is the structural tell of the group, the asymmetric saw-tooth slanting toward the base. The line frequently leans saka-gakari, the elements inclining in reverse, and into it run ashi and yo with ko-nie gathering and fine sunagashi and kinsuji passing through. The nioiguchi tends to sink to a subdued shizumi, the calm, slightly dimmed temper that the published sources name again and again as the mark of the Motoshige hand. The boshi enters in midare-komi and turns back pointed, at times a ko-maru or a yakizume sweep.
The jigane keeps the attribution in Bizen even where the temper alone might read as Soden. He forges a standing itame, often run through with nagare-hada and mixed with mokume and patches of jifu, the ji-nie thick and chikei entering, the grain a little raised. Across it rises a clear midare-utsuri, the bright reflection of old Bizen steel, sometimes a fainter bo-utsuri along the edge. The steel on his finest pieces takes a bluish-black tonality with a cold clarity, the nioiguchi bright and the activity within the ha abundant, with places where coarse nie glitters strongly.
His record divides into three registers. The mainstream is the suguha-toned, angular-gunome work that the published sources read as close to Motoshige, the manner that anchors his many o-suriage mumei attributions. Against it stands a rare exception, the ubu signed tachi dated Enbun 3, of which the commentary remarks that the workmanship 'is not in a Motoshige-like manner'[[c:1]], opening instead into a frank choji-midare with pointed gunome at the monouchi. The third register is the body of his surviving work, the greatly shortened mumei katana, several originally large tachi exceeding three shaku, wide in body and shallow in sori in the Nanbokucho mode. As with Motoshige, the published sources propose a first and a second generation across his dated span, the bold two-character signature taken for the first and the smaller signature cut 'Saemon-no-jo Shigezane'[[c:2]] for the second, a question still left for further study.
What sets him apart within the late Osafune is exactly what the judges name. His angular gunome and kataochi-gunome, his saka-gakari temper and subdued nioiguchi, and the bright midare-utsuri over his standing itame place him with Motoshige and apart from the rounder, showier Bizen of Fukuoka and Yoshioka, while the published sources read into his forging a manner that incorporates the character of Aoe, the workmanship they call 'a hand with Aoe character mixed in'[[c:3]]. On a mumei katana judged to him the commentary allows that views of 'Unrui or Chikakage'[[c:4]] are possible, the panel narrowing it to Shigezane only on close reading of the whole taihai together with the detail of ji and ha, the clear midare-utsuri leaving no doubt of Bizen.
For the collector Shigezane is a scarce signed name. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and his record runs not through National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties, of which he has none, but through a single Tokubetsu Juyo and many Juyo, forty-five blades across the two tiers. The value of his best pieces lies in their documentary weight: the Tokubetsu Juyo katana with its folded-back long signature, called 'a representative work of this smith'[[c:5]]; the Karyaku 2 tanto, the earliest of his dated works and a foothold for his study; and a naginata preserved in its original form, 'a precious example that survives as a naginata without having been reshaped into a sword'[[c:6]]. Of recorded whereabouts a few are held in public collections, among them the Hayashibara Museum of Art and the Bizen Osafune Sword Museum, and the denrai of his blades passes through daimyo and old houses, the Matsudaira family with Matsudaira Ukon-no-suke Terusada and the Takasaki domain, and the Niwa family on to Tokugawa Yoshinobu. A signed Shigezane comes to light only seldom, and a privately held example, especially an ubu or dated one, is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of how the Motoshige hand carried Bizen into the Nanbokucho.
Where Shigezane stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Bizen-den · Bizen
186 pieces on the market now
No single workshop in the history of Japanese swordmaking grew larger or lasted longer than Osafune, the riverside village in Bizen Province whose name became, across three centuries, a byword for the province's mainline. Its de facto founder was Mitsutada (光忠), working at Osafune in the middle Kamakura period; tradition makes him the son of Chikatada, and the genealogies derive his line from the Ko-Bizen Masatsune group already settled in the village. His blades, bold and imposing with a jigane so refined the sources say it can at a glance suggest Kyoto work, were treasured from old as the swords of commanders, and from his hand the school spread immediately: his sons Nagamitsu (長光) and Sanenaga (眞長), his grandson Kagemitsu (景光), and outward through pupils and collaterals until, by the late Kamakura years, Osafune was less a family than an industry. The line is conventionally read as a three-generation spine, Mitsutada founding it, Nagamitsu setting its classical standard, Kagemitsu bringing both temper and forging to their finished form before handing the manner to his pupil Chikakage (近景), whose echo of the master is so close that signed Kagemitsu blades are sometimes read as Chikakage daimei. What binds the membership is a shared steel before any shared temper. The forging is itame mixed with mokume, tightening on the finest blades into a dense ko-itame; fine ji-nie adheres, chikei enter, and over all of it stands the midare-utsuri that anchors even the most Kyoto-like jigane back to Bizen. On that floor the founding generation tempers a flamboyant choji-midare mixed with gunome: Mitsutada's tadpole-headed kawazuko-choji, Nagamitsu's round-topped plump choji, the deep nioi with ko-nie, the bright nioiguchi. From here the school divides by hand and by era. Sanenaga draws the calm pole, a gentle chu-suguha of tightened nioiguchi; Kagemitsu completes the slanting, square-shouldered kataochi-gunome over a suguha base, the family's last great Kamakura invention, carried on by his close kinsman Kagemasa (景政). The Nanbokucho generation then turns toward Soshu-den: Kanemitsu (兼光), fourth master of the mainline, pioneers a broad notare and is read, with Chogi (長義), as the head of Soden-Bizen, the Bizen wing that worked Soshu nie into a jigane that still throws a Bizen utsuri.
Chogi is called the most un-Bizen of Bizen smiths, his ear-shaped mimigata his tell; around him Nagashige (長重), Yoshikage (義景), Tomomitsu (倫光) and Kanenaga (兼長) press the Soshu side by degrees, while Motoshige (元重), of a separate Hatakeda descent, carries an Aoe-tinged squared, slanting ha. Two generations later the Oei revival returns to Kamakura: Yasumitsu (康光) and Morimitsu (盛光), the twin pillars of Oei-Bizen, revive the tachi shape and the choji temper over a wide-waisted koshibiraki-gunome, both finishing in the pointed rosoku-no-shin (candle-wick) boshi that gives the late date away. For the collector the school is a school of discriminations, and to kantei it is to read those fine partitions. The constant midare-utsuri over a bright ko-itame fixes the province; the boshi then sorts the maker, Mitsutada's pointed midare-komi against Nagamitsu's composed ko-maru Sansaku turn, Kagemitsu's contained return, the candle-wick tongue of Oei. Within a single phase the calls turn on a half-step: Nagamitsu's plump crests against Sanenaga's cooler nioiguchi, Kagemasa's freer play against Kagemitsu's tighter order, Nagashige read out of Chogi by a nie that surpasses his brother's. The standing of the best is matched by their patrimony. Mitsutada, Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu each hold National Treasures and stand at the head of Fujishiro's Sai-jo saku; their named blades, the Daihannya Nagamitsu, the Kogaryu Kagemitsu, the O-Kanemitsu, passed through Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Uesugi Kenshin and the great daimyo houses. Because Nagamitsu and the Nanbokucho masters signed and survived in number, Osafune offers what most peerage names cannot, a deep field of Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo work that a patient collector may still realistically hold. Through every register the same hand declares itself: the bright steel, the vivid reflection, and a temper that runs, across three centuries, as the spine of Bizen. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 254 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 142 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 68 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 235 |
Bizen in the Nanbokuchō period
Sixty years of war between two courts drove blades long and broad, and Osafune met the demand: Kanemitsu and Chōgi led forges serving the provincial warriors who did the fighting, while Sōshū influence arrived with the armies to create Sōden-Bizen.
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.
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