Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch忠吉五代は近江大掾忠吉の子で元禄九年の生まれ。名を橋本新左衛門といい、初め忠廣と銘を切り、延享四年九月九日、父を黄泉に送った後、忠吉の工銘を襲った。長寿であった父の作刀に協力したため自作は少なく、近江守を受領した寛延三年には既に五十五歳であった。六十一歳となった宝暦六年には鍋島侯の命で、佐賀城下の太神宮、仁比山神社、徳善院への奉納刀(注1)を打ち、忠吉家の当主としての責務を全うしている。 この刀は、二寸半程区が送られて尚寸法が長く、身幅広く重ね厚く中鋒の、威風堂々の体配(注2)。肥前の小糠肌とも呼ばれる鉄色晴れやかな地鉄は、良く詰んだ小板目肌に地沸が微塵に付いて潤い、細かな地景が網状に働く。鑚使いの見事な刀身彫刻は、忠吉一門の彫師忠長の手になる倶利迦羅で、三鈷柄剣に絡みつく身体の際を鋭く彫り下げ、細部まで鋭利な鑚で緻密に彫って生気に満ち、今にも動き出さんばかり。刃文は得意の広直刃で、僅かに小互の目小丁子を交えて浅く揺れ、純白の小沸で刃縁が明るく、特に中程から先は一段と深く沸付き、淡く小足が入り、匂で霞立つ刃中に葉が華麗に舞う。帽子は、ふくらに沿って綺麗な小丸に返る。茎には忠吉五代の特色の顕著な銘が鑚強く刻され、「彫物同州忠長」の添銘(注3)も貴重。五代目の冴えた地刃に忠長の両面彫が映えた同作中の傑作である。 注1...太神宮は鍋島直茂が世継誕生祈願をして勝茂を得たと伝える伊勢神社。仁比山神社は直茂・勝茂により再建された神社。徳善院は鍋島家祖道壽が開いた同家の祈祷寺。鍋島本家の尊崇は特別であった。 注2...『肥前刀大鑑忠吉篇』には「(遺作の殆どが)身幅の広い造り込み」とある。 注3...「享保十二年丁未年八月吉日刳物同國住忠長」の添銘のある遠江守兼廣と越中守廣住合作の刀がある。本作は延享四年九月九日から寛延三年近江守受領以前の時期の忠長添銘入りの作例で、忠長の長寿とその動向を伝えて資料的価値も高い。
NihontoWatchOffered by Choshuya
This piece has sold
105 on the market
Get an email when a new Hizen Tadayoshi piece hits the market.
Shinto · Hizen · around 1748-1751
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 49%
Shinto · Hizen
105 pieces on the market now
The Hizen school began with a single domain commission. In Keicho 1 (1596) the Nabeshima of Hizen ordered Hashimoto Shinzaemon, the smith who would sign Tadayoshi, up to Kyoto with the carver Munenaga; there he entered the gate of Umetada Myoju and studied forging while Munenaga learned the chisel. The two returned to the province in Keicho 3 (1598), and Tadayoshi settled in the castle town below Saga, where under the domain's patronage the line grew into the dominant sword-making house of Kyushu. His own work runs from Keicho 5 (1600) to his death in Kan'ei 9 (1632); in Genna 10 (1624) he received the court title Musashi Daijo, changed his name to Tadahiro, and shifted his clan name from Minamoto to Fujiwara, so that the late Musashi Daijo blades are the founder under a second name. From him the house became a true generational institution: his son the second-generation Omi Daijo Tadahiro carried it forward as its most prolific hand, the third-generation Mutsu no Kami Tadayoshi returned its highest finish, and a Tosa no Kami branch took the founder's signature when he set it aside. Around this main line grew a circle of disciples and collateral hands, the waki-Hizen or Soba-Hizen smiths, several of them, like Yoshiie and Hironori, working as daisaku substitute makers whose own signed pieces are therefore scarce. The school's signature is its steel. Over a ko-itame forged so tightly it shows no slackness, fine ji-nie gathers in minute particles until the surface takes on the rice-bran konuka-hada (also written komenuka-hada) that no other school produces, fine chikei entering throughout and the ji notably clear and bright.
The orthodox temper laid upon it is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha, sometimes tinged with a shallow notare and ko-gunome, the nioiguchi deep with finely clustered ko-nie and tightened to a bright clarity, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru. The founder aimed this suguha toward the Rai school yet departed from it, his nioiguchi tighter and his forging carrying more vigor; the third generation refined it to what the published sources call the strongest and most precise hand of the first three generations. Against that calm register the house also worked a showier one, the Hizen choji-midare mixing gunome, long ashi, kinsuji and sunagashi, a manner the published sources already find more often in the founder's late Musashi Daijo work than in his Tadayoshi years, and one the second generation made his own. The branches pushed further from the suguha standard: Tadakuni of the Ogi domain ran sunagashi more conspicuously than any other Hizen hand and reached toward old Ichimonji in his o-choji; Masahiro and Yukihiro favored a flamboyant long-ashi choji over the calm main line; and the Iyo no Jo Munetsugu line worked apart in the Soshu-den, building a midareba on notare with a pointed togariba and a jihada that tends to stand and tone slightly blackish. A collector seeks Hizen-to first for that steel, and reads it the same way the appraiser does: a bright suguha lying over a clear, tight konuka-hada identifies the school before the signature is consulted, and the quiet ko-maru boshi on the ura-signed tang confirms the main-line practice. Generation and branch are then told within that frame, the third generation's powerful sugata recalling not his father but his grandfather, the waki-Hizen hands set apart by their irregular temper, their sujikai file marks and a sashi-ura signature, the Munetsugu line by its Soshu togari. The main line, made in real numbers across so long a span, reaches the market more readily than any Kamakura master, so a papered example is within reach of a patient collector, while the founder's own work and the finest konuka-suguha of the third generation come to open hands only from time to time. Provenance runs back through the house the school served, blades recorded to Nabeshima Katsushige and Nabeshima Naomoto and passing onward to the Owari Tokugawa, the Satake and the Imperial families; documentary inscriptions sharpen the picture further, a Myoju soemei attesting the founder's discipleship, Umetada carving adding flowers to brocade on his late blades, and the gold-inlaid cutting tests of Yamano Kanjuro and Yamano Ka'emon, rare on Hizen work, naming the edge as well as the hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1596-1632 | 155 |
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1660-1686 | 61 |
| Tadahiro忠廣 | 1633-1693 | 133 |
| Masahiro正廣 | 1624-1655 | 30 |
| Tadakuni忠國 | 1648-1652 | 32 |
Hizen: a domain enterprise
Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
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 siteIf, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.