¥1,500,000

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About the school

Owari Masatsune School尾張政常派

The line begins with a Mino man. The setsumei record that Sagami no Kami Masatsune (政常) was born at Nōdo in Mino Province, where he first signed *Kanetsune* (兼常) and is variously said to have been the son or a disciple of Kanetsune of Seki. In Eiroku 10 (1567) he established an independent branch line and moved to Komaki village, likely changing his name to Masatsune about that time; in the fifth month of Tenshō 19 (1591) he received the court title Sagami no Kami, and in Keichō 5 (1600) he followed Matsudaira Tadayoshi to Kiyosu in Owari, where he became a retained smith (*kakae-kō*) of the Owari Tokugawa house. Several records place him at Kiyosu alongside Hōki no Kami Nobutaka and Hida no Kami Ujifusa, the three later counted as the *Owari Sansaku* (Three Smiths of Owari). After taking the tonsure and retiring in Keichō 12 (1607), he passed the name to his son; when that second generation died suddenly two years later he resumed forging under the *nyūdō* signature Masatsune Nyūdō, and is said to have died in Genna 5 (1619) at the age of eighty-four. A separate second generation, *Mino no Kami* Fujiwara Masatsune, is recorded as the son of Daidō of Gifu, adopted into the line, who carried on its spear and *naginata* work. A Mino foundation worked toward *suguha* defines the shared hand. The forging is *itame* mixed with *mokume*, frequently flowing into *masame* toward the *mune* and *shinogi-ji*, with the grain standing somewhat (*hada-dachi*), abundant *ji-nie*, and *chikei*; a *mizukage*-like feature rising from the *machi* is noted on several tantō and wakizashi. The temper that the setsumei call his specialty is a *chū*- to broad *suguha* in *ko-nie-deki*, the *habuchi* worked with *hotsure*, *nijūba*, *kuichigai-ba*, and *uchi-noke*, with *ko-gunome* and *ko-ashi* mixed in, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through, and a bright *nioiguchi*. Beside this restrained mode runs a bolder *midareba* of *gunome* and *ko-notare* with *togariba*, sometimes *hakogakari* or *saka-gakari*, where the *nie* grows coarse and clustered and the *nioiguchi* turns *shizumi* (subdued); the Owari-Seki "wet" *nure* quality appears in the wider blades. The *bōshi* tends to straight with *ko-maru* and *hakikake* in the *suguha* works, *midare-komi* with a rounded or long return in the *midareba* works. Carving is plain but crisp: *suken*, *bonji*, *gomabashi*, *koshi-hi* with *soe-hi*, and the rarely seen *shin no Kurikara* in openwork. Among extant works, the setsumei agree, *hira-zukuri* wakizashi and tantō are the most numerous and of high skill, *yari* and *naginata* are comparatively common with the spears often *hira-sankaku sasaho* form, while *katana* and *shinogi-zukuri* wakizashi are extremely few. For kantei this rarity gives weight to the long swords: the 67th Jūyō *Kanetsune*-signed katana, dated by its *sakizori* and large *kissaki* to about Eiroku, anchors the smith's early phase, and the 31st Jūyō Masatsune Nyūdō katana shows the flowing *masame*, shallow *notare*, and *shizumi nioiguchi* read as his own. Named pieces include the *Sagami no Kami Masatsune Nyūdō* wakizashi held by the Imperial Household Agency and the katana once with Tokugawa Iesato and the Reimeikai Foundation; one wakizashi survives in *akikusa-mon* koshirae with fittings by Mogarashi Sōten of Hikone. The setsumei note that in his bolder work Masatsune looked to the Sagami masters Sadamune and Nobukuni while keeping the *togari* and Sanbon-sugi traces of his Mino root, placing his line as the Owari channel through which the Mino-den passed into *shintō*.

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