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二王一派は周防国の刀工群で、鎌倉時代の二王清綱を事実上の祖としています。鎌倉時代中期から室町時代を経て、江戸時代まで繁栄をみます。周防国には、大和国東大寺の寺領が多く存在したため、大和鍛冶と交流深く、同一派の作風にも影響が表れます。同派の鍛冶が「二王」の名を冠する理由としては、周防国の仁保庄(におのしょう)に住していた事が有力な説と云われています。本刀作者の清定は、作刀時期を明暦-寛文頃とし、「長州住清定」などと銘を切ります。清忠は、同派三代清正孫とし、玉井宅太夫と称します。明暦・万治頃の年紀の作品が現存します。 本作は刃長が一尺六寸二分。身幅元先広く、重ね尋常で、反りは適度、フクラ豊かな中切っ先となる力強く健全な刀姿の一振です。地鉄は良く練られた板目肌に杢目を交え、処々流れ心、地沸付き、地景が入り、総体肌が現れ、精美な肌となります。刃文は小沸出来の直刃で、沸匂均一に整い、明るく冴えた焼刃です。帽子はそのまま直ぐで先掃き掛けて返ります。茎は生ぶで、鑢目、錆味、刻銘共に良好な保存状態を示します。本刀は、新刀期 二王派の清定と清忠の合作刀で、同一派の技法を受け継いだ両工の入念作であります。白鞘。金着一重ハバキ。特別保存刀剣鑑定書。
NihontoWatchNio School二王派
Offered by World Seiyudo
This piece has sold
8 on the market
Get an email when new Nio School work hits the market.
Wakimono · Suo
8 pieces on the market now
The Niō school (二王) worked in Suō Province along the San'yōdō, the western reach of the country where heavy concentrations of temple estates, including lands of Tōdai-ji, drew the province into exchange with the Yamato heartland. The members describe the line as beginning in tradition around the Hōen era (1135 to 1141) with a Kiyozane or Kiyohira, but they agree that no securely attributable work by either survives, so Kiyotsuna is regarded in effect as the school's founder. His oldest dated piece, a tachi signed in a written-out inscription, "Bun'ei 2, third month, Kiyotsuna" (1265)[[c:1]], is preserved at Itsukushima Shrine and serves as the touchstone against which the first generation is read; after it the same signature continues without interruption through the Muromachi period and into the shintō era, the name borne by generation after generation, with a tantō signed "Bōshū Kuga-shō Kiyotsuna" of Kenmu 2 (1335) marking the line's passage into the Nanbokuchō. The members tie the appellation most persuasively to residence in Niho-shō within the province, one tradition deriving it instead from a first Kiyotsuna who cut a chain to free the Niō Guardian Kings from a temple fire, a pun the name carries. Later hands continue the manner, the Ōei-era Kiyonaga representative of the sue-Niō generations and a Kiyosada recorded through Kakitsu, Daiei, and Tenbun. Across the generations the members converge on one coherent manner. The kitae is itame mixed with mokume and nagare, the grain flowing overall and in places strongly toward masame so that the hada stands finely; minute ji-nie adheres and fine chikei enter, the steel sometimes carrying a slightly whitish tone. The temper rests on a narrow suguha, often slender, mixed with ko-gunome, ko-midare, and a shallow ko-notare, with ko-ashi and ko-nie attached and kinsuji and sunagashi moving along it; along the habuchi the members note hotsure, uchi-noke, and kuichigai-ba, and the bōshi runs straight and turns back in a small ko-maru, the tip at times showing hakikake.
What the members single out as the school's own individuality, the features that separate Niō from the Yamashiro and Yamato suguha it otherwise resembles, are two paired effects: a shirake-utsuri, a whitish hazy reflection standing in the ji toward the mune, and an urumi, a moist softly clouded quality in the nioiguchi where the bright line of Rai and Tegai gives way to something more subdued. Divergences across the line are matters of degree rather than kind: the early signed work reads quiet and controlled with a brightened nioiguchi, the later sue-Niō hands lean toward gentle notare with active yo, and the late generations add kurikara and Niō-guardian carvings in ranma-sukashi and relief within hitsu recesses. To read Niō work the members return to the same tells. The tachi sugata is the elegant late-Kamakura form, slender and high in the shinogi, the kasane somewhat thick, with pronounced koshizori, a small or medium kissaki, and taka-no-ha file marks that confirm the Yamato connection; the tantō is hira-zukuri with slight uchizori. At a glance the workmanship is suggestive of Yamato proper, yet the members observe that the flowing grain is not as conspicuous as in Yamato blades and the nie is comparatively restrained, while the shirake-utsuri in the ji and the urumi in the ha, taken together and not either alone, are the pairing that fixes the attribution against both the Yamato heartland and the brighter Yamashiro suguha of Rai; this same moist, whitish register, paired with the masame-leaning standing hada, also sets the school apart from the clearer steel and jifu of Aoe. The best of the signed first-generation pieces are judged to express not only Kiyotsuna's own hand but the characteristic traits of the school, signed examples with ubu-nakago prized as documentary material given how few survive. Provenance, where recorded, is distinguished: an Important Art Object tachi now in the Sano Art Museum was held at its prewar recognition by Tokugawa Iesato, another signed tachi descends to the Seikadō from the Ōsaka collection of Kajima Isao, and the dated touchstone remains at Itsukushima. Most of what survives is held in shrine and institutional hands rather than traded, so a signed Kiyotsuna with its file marks and old two-character mei intact is among the rarer things a collector of provincial Kamakura work might encounter. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kiyotsuna清綱 | 1293-1299 | 10 |
| Masakiyo方清 | 1661-1673 | 0 |
| Naokuni直國 | 1848-1854 | 0 |
| Masakiyo方清 | 1688-1704 | 0 |
| Kazukiyo一清 | 1441-1444 | 0 |
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.
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).