Muromachi turned sword making into an industry: the uchigatana rose with massed infantry warfare, Osafune and Seki produced bundle swords beside custom orders, and the Ming trade carried Japanese blades abroad by the tens of thousands.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch宇多派は鎌倉末期に大和国宇陀郡から移住した古入道國光に始まり、國房、國宗などの優工を輩出し、南北朝から室町期に亘って大いに栄えた。同派は、柾がかる板目鍛えの地鉄に沸出来乱刃の、大和伝に相州伝を加味した作を遺しており、中でも國房は応永頃に活躍した優工の一人である。 この脇差は、宇多國房と極められた大磨上無銘の一振。鎬地の肉を削ぎ落して刃の抜けの良さを追求したものながら、適度に反って品格のある姿を留めている。地鉄は板目に杢を交えて綾杉状にうねる肌合いとし、平地は殊に小板目に柾を交えて詰み、細かな地景が入り、地沸が微塵に付いて輝き、刃の際が澄んで処々に地斑が現れ、乱れごころの映りとなり、濃淡変化のある様子は味わい深く、鎬筋に沿って施された食い違い樋も個性的で、古名刀の風情を漂わせている。刃文はゆったりとした湾れに互の目を交え、深く付いた沸の粒子が刃中に零れて相州伝の雪の叢消えの如き様相を呈し、刃境に小形の金線、細かな砂流し、打ちのけ風に湯走りが掛かり、処々喰い違い、小足入り、刃中に沸匂が充満して蒼く冴える。帽子は焼を充分に残し、強く沸付いて掃き掛け、横に展開して焼き詰めごころに僅かに返る。大磨上無銘の茎は横鑢で丁寧に仕立てられている。地刃精妙に働き、短寸ながら大きさを感じさせる、見応えのある作である(注)。 注...往時は京粟田口國清として伝来したものであろう。昭和二十七年東 京都発行の登録証には当時の登録審査員により「無銘(傳粟田口国清)」と万年筆で記されている。
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Wakimono · Etchu · around 1394-1428
Fujishiro Chu-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 18%
1 piece on the market now
Where Kunifusa 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
Wakimono · Etchu
Phase: Ko-Uda古宇多· 1310–1394
9 pieces on the market now
Ko-Uda (古宇多) names the founding stratum of the Uda school, the work that does not descend later than the Nanbokucho period and so stands before the long Muromachi continuation that the same studio names would carry. The setsumei place the origin in Yamato: around the Bunpo era at the close of Kamakura, the monk-smith Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu left Uda District in Yamato and settled at Utsu in Etchu, and from him the lineage took root. His sons Kunifusa and Kunimune are recorded, and across the Juyo and Jubi explanations the active founding hands are listed together as Kunifusa, Kunimune, and Kunitsugu, the generations that worked through the Nanbokucho period before the name-bearing successions ran down into late Muromachi. A signed Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu is hard to fix among several smiths who used the name; the Tokuju tachi is read as the founder precisely because it shows the most archaic character of the surviving examples, earlier even than the Kunifusa pieces taken for Nanbokucho. The early steel is the school read at its source. The forging is itame mixed with mokume and running nagare-hada that tends to stand (hada-dachi), ji-nie adhering with chikei, and over it a whitish shirake-utsuri or, on the founder's own work, a nie-utsuri; the jigane carries a blackish, golden-toned cast that the explanations call a northern-province feeling. The temper sits in narrow to chu-suguha, opening into ko-notare, ko-gunome, ko-midare, and togariba, with ko-ashi and yo and ko-nie well set; along the habuchi the Yamato signature of hotsure and kuichigai-ba appears, while kinsuji and sunagashi run through.
Against the later Uda generations, the Ko-Uda face is the purer one. The Tokuju founder is appraised as workmanship entirely like Yamato; the Hie Shrine and Kurokawa tachi by the shodai Kunifusa hold a tight, clear nioiguchi and a bright forging, and the nie in the best stands strong and rounded where the later hands run coarser and more provincial. A Soshu lean exists, traced to the study of Norishige and Go, yet in this phase the steel and nioiguchi keep returning the blade to Yamato roots rather than dissolving into them. To kantei a Ko-Uda blade is to catch the standing, whitish jigane with its masame tendency and utsuri beneath a suguha that might otherwise recall Yamashiro, and to bring a nie-rich, chikei-laden example home from Soshu by the dark steel and the subdued (shizumi) nioiguchi. The named early hands recur across the corpus: the shodai Kunifusa, fixed against dated pieces no earlier than Koo 1 (1389) and the calligraphy of the lattice-broken 国; the signed Ko-Uda Kunimitsu and Ko-Uda Tomonori of around Meitoku; and the rare Tomoshige and Tomonori, smiths of few survivals through whom the phase's reach is gauged. Because signed early work is uncommon, the phase leans on mumei attributions read off forging and temper, several entered as den Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu. Provenance settles into shrine and institutional holding, the Hie Shrine and Kurokawa Institute tachi serving as the calibrating standards against which other early Kunifusa are judged, and the dated examples valued as documentary footing for the study of how Yamato workmanship took its northern form. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunifusa國房 | 1368-1405 | 17 |
| Kunimitsu國光 | 1362-1368 | 9 |
| Tomonori友則 | 1390-1394 | 4 |
| Kunitsugu國次 | 1356-1361 | 1 |
| Kunimitsu國光 | 1317-1319 | 2 |
The Muromachi period (1392 to 1573)
Muromachi turned sword making into an industry: the uchigatana rose with massed infantry warfare, Osafune and Seki produced bundle swords beside custom orders, and the Ming trade carried Japanese blades abroad by the tens of thousands.
Certifies a genuine blade worth preserving: a signature confirmed correct, or, if unsigned, an era, province, and school that the NBTHK can reliably identify.
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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