NihontoWatch伯耆守信高。慶長のはじめ、初代信高が美濃より尾張清洲城下に移り、名古屋城が完成した慶長十五年頃、名古屋に移住します。初代信高の刻銘と技術は二代信高に受け継がれ、その後も代々尾張徳川家の藩工として栄え、六代まで続きます。本作は二代目である前伯州信高入道の作品です。俗名は河村伯耆。寛永十年に伯耆守を受領、寛文二年、六十歳にて隠居し、前伯州山月居士と名乗って、閉遊入道と称します。元禄二年没、行年八十七歳。伯耆守信高、前伯州信高入道、前伯州山月信高居士、伯耆守藤原信高閉遊入道などと銘を切ります。同一派は初代から五代までが「伯耆守」を受領している尾張刀工の名門であります。 本作体配は、刃長が二尺三寸三分弱。身幅広く元先で幅差付き、反り適度で中切っ先となる寛文姿の一口。鍛は、小杢目肌に処々流れ肌が交じって、地沸よく付き、細かく地景が入り、整った綺麗な肌合いです。焼刃は直ぐで焼き出し、小さな互の目や丁子が連れて、一つの山の様になり、尖り刃や矢筈刃風、湾れを交えて穏やかで上品な乱れが構成されます。帽子は直ぐで先小丸に返ります。茎は生ぶ、筋違鑢目で、刀工銘が切られます。本刀は、尾張新刀の名手 二代伯耆守信高の一口です。本刀は、尾張新刀の名手 二代伯耆守信高の一口です。湾れに互の目を交えた刃文は、山並みを遠望するかのような景色を思わせ、味わい深い趣を纏う御刀です。白鞘、金着二重はばき、特別保存刀剣鑑定書。
NihontoWatchOffered by World Seiyudo
This piece has sold
Get an email when a new Sanami Nobutaka piece hits the market.
Mino-den · Owari · around 1624-1644
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 37%
1 piece on the market now
Where Nobutaka 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Mino-den · Mino
8 pieces on the market now
The San'ami line takes its root in Mino Province, where its head smith Kanenori (兼則) worked as one of the so-called Seki Seven Schools. The setsumei place Kanenori from the close of the Nanbokuchō period into the Ōei era of the early Muromachi, alongside Kanemoto and Kanesada among the representative hands of Sue-Seki, and the earliest extant signed tachi of his is appraised as no later than Ōei. A second early smith, Kanekuni (兼国), is recorded as belonging to the San'ami lineage and is judged to predate the Sue-Seki group proper; the remote ancestry given for him runs variously to a disciple of Naoe Kanetomo, to Yamato Kanekuni, or to Kanenori, though the setsumei note that nothing survives to confirm so distant a descent. From this Mino stock came Hōki no Kami Fujiwara Nobutaka (信高), born at Kami-Ōchi in Mino in 1563 and said to descend from San'ami Kanekuni. After receiving the title Hōki no Kami in Tenshō 9 (1581) he moved to Kiyosu in Owari and, serving Tokugawa Yoshinao, later settled at Nagoya, carrying the line into the early Shintō era through a second generation who took the tonsure in Kanbun 2 (1662). Across the corpus the jigane is itame, often closely forged and tending to nagare-hada or flowing grain along the edge, with ji-nie and a frequent standing of the grain (hada-dachi); a faint whitish cast (shirake) marks the older Mino work of Kanenori and Kanekuni. The temper rests on suguha as a base. In the early hands it is a tight, clear (saete) suguha in nioi-deki, sometimes mixed with small gunome, angular elements and pointed ha, carrying ashi, hotsure and scattered tobiyaki.
The Nobutaka works open this out: a broad suguha shifting to shallow notare, ko-notare with a gunome-flavored edge, deep nioi with nie unevenly applied and partly coarse, nie-kuzure at the yakigashira, kuichigai-ba, kinsuji, sunagashi, yubashiri and tobiyaki that climb into the shinogi-ji until the upper half reads as hitatsura. The bōshi runs to sugu with ko-maru, at times midare-komi, pointed, or hakikake, and the early swords keep a slender, high-sori tachi shape while Nobutaka's carry the wide-bodied, ō-kissaki form of the Momoyama transition. The hand is recognized in this pairing of a flowing Mino itame with a suguha core that, in the descendants, breaks toward bold hitatsura. For kantei, the setsumei fix several anchors. In Kanenori's signature the scooped chisel at the fourth stroke of the character kane (兼) is read as a trait of late Nanbokuchō through Ōei work, matched in dated Kaneyoshi mei; the clear suguha of Kanekuni is likened to a Zenjō Kaneyoshi masterpiece. The jizō-flavored bōshi and the nagare-mixed itame in Nobutaka are named as the surviving stamp of the Mino root beneath his Owari manner, and one of his katana is recorded as an Inabae-utsushi. Provenance runs through the corpus: a Kanekuni bears kinzōgan recording it as the sashiryō of Ōkubo Genban-no-jō Tadanari, lord of Odawara in Sagami, worn at the age of ninety-three; Kanenori's tachi descended in the Yamanouchi family. Among the Owari yari makers beginning with Masatsune, Nobutaka's yari of extraordinary length is held in particular regard, and the second-generation Nobutaka is judged no less skilled than his father, with the finest extant Nobutaka works counted to his hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Nobutaka信高 | 1581-1615 | 3 |
| Nobutaka信高 | 1624-1644 | 2 |
| Nobutaka信高 | 1673-1681 | 0 |
| Kanekuni兼國 | 1455-1457 | 1 |
| Kanenori兼則 | 1370-1372 | 1 |
Mino in the Momoyama period
Unification closed the mass market, and Seki’s smiths moved to where the new money was: the Mishina line to Kyōto with court titles, Daidō smiths to castle towns across the provinces. Mino became the great technical ancestor of the Shintō age.
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 siteNo cooling-off period or returns; refund only if the purchased sword is proven fake, capped at purchase price (excludes commission sales, accessories, auction items).