NihontoWatch播磨国手柄山(兵庫県)を出身とする氏繁は、江戸時代中期 延享頃の初代氏繁に始まり、同銘が江戸時代後期 文化頃の五代氏繁まで続きます。同家の中でも四代氏繁(手柄山正繁)は特に上手とされ、陸奥国白川藩の抱工となっています。本品は、刻銘より二代氏繁の作とみられます。同工は初代氏繁の子で、江戸時代中期 明和頃に活躍し、後に入道して「丹霞」と切ります。天明三年十二月二十五日没。 本作体配は、刃長が二尺弱、身幅重ね共に尋常、反り適度に中切っ先となる刀姿で、表裏に棒樋の彫刻を施します。地鉄は、小板目肌に地沸微塵に付き、細かに地景が入る鍛です。焼刃は小湾れに一部互の目ごころを交え、刃縁に小沸がふんわりと付いて、匂口明るく冴えます。帽子はそのまま湾れ、先掃きかけて返ります。茎は生ぶ、筋違鑢目で、刀工銘を切ります。総体上品に整った出来口で、内外合わせてお楽しみいただける一口です。白鞘、銀無垢一重はばき、黒蝋色塗鞘打刀拵。
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Shinshinto · Harima · around 1764-1772
Tōken Taikan top 76%
1 piece on the market now
Shinshinto · Harima
9 pieces on the market now
At the foot of Mount Tegara in Himeji, Harima province, a family of smiths took the mountain's name as their own across successive generations, descending from the first-generation Yamato no Daijō Fujiwara Ujishige. The setsumei trace this Banshū line through its best-documented figure, Tegarayama Masashige[[c:1]], commonly called Asashichi or Chōshichi and using the art name Tankasai. He was the younger brother of the third-generation Tegarayama Ujishige, first succeeded to the name of the fourth-generation Ujishige, and only later changed his signature to Masashige. In Tenmei 8 (1788) he entered the service of Matsudaira Sadanobu, lord of Shirakawa in Ōshū, as a retained smith (kakae-kaji) and moved to Edo, where he resided at Surugadai in Kanda; in the fourth month of Kyōwa 3 (1803) he received the honorary title Kai no Kami. One setsumei records that in Edo he studied under Suishinshi Masahide. Around the start of the Bunsei era he forged for a time in Osaka before returning to Edo, and from his lord Rakuō he was granted the two characters "Shinmyō," which he cut on the works he held most successful. The hand the setsumei describe is a Soshu-toned revival built on the tōran-midare of Tsuda Echizen no Kami Sukehiro, whose style Masashige privately admired (shishuku). The forging runs to tightly compacted ko-itame-hada with ji-nie adhering thickly, fine chikei entering, and at times a quiet near-muji ground; the steel reads clear.
Most blades open with a suguha or sugu yakidashi at the base and then rise into a billowing tōran-style large gunome-midare, mixed with notare, slightly pointed (togari-gokoro) elements, and arrow-nock (yahazu) shapes likened to surging waves. The temper carries deep nioi, evenly adhering ko-nie, ashi and yō, with sunagashi and kinsuji threading the edge and tobiyaki, yubashiri, and muneyaki breaking out above it; the nioiguchi tends bright. The bōshi is generally sugu ending in ko-maru, sometimes with hakikake and a long kaeri. Beyond this signature manner he also worked shallow notare of wide yakihaba and plain suguha, so the orderly large gunome that refuses to collapse, the pointed accents within the ha, and the wide mihaba of his forms serve as the readiest marks of his work. Across the register the kantei points cluster around that controlled tōran and its lively ji and ha, while one wakizashi, mingling yahazu into the edge, prompts the observation that Gonnoshin Terukane may also have been in mind. Self-carved horimono recur and aid attribution: jewel-chasing and ascending or descending dragons, bonji, the sankō-tsuka-ken, and hi, with tangs reading "hori dōsaku" to record the smith's own chisel. Several inscriptions carry documentary weight, naming Surugadai and Shundai in Buyō as places of forging, Ishū Dewa iron also used by Katayama Munetsugu, and a commission for Kosugi Tamenaga, a retainer of the Koga domain; a Juyo wakizashi signed "Ōshū Shirakawa kashin Masashige" bears self-cut dragon, bonji, and sankō-tsuka-ken recorded on its tang. The blades signed with bold, thick-chisel mei over ubu tangs finished in keshō ō-sujikai, dated through the Kansei and Kyōwa years, mark Tegarayama as a Himeji-rooted shinshintō line whose strength lay in the recreation of Sukehiro's waves. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Masashige正繁 | 1789-1801 | 13 |
| Ujishige氏繁 | 1751-1764 | 0 |
| Ujishige氏繁 | 1781-1789 | 0 |
| Ujishige氏繁 | 1789-1801 | 0 |
| Masanao正直 | 1804-1818 | 0 |
The Shinshintō revival
Around 1800 Suishinshi Masahide argued in his writings that the craft must return to the old masters’ methods: the fukkotō revival. His greatest successor Naotane worked convincingly in Bizen and Sōshū manners that had been dead for centuries.
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