Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchTokubetsu hozon token Shinto josaku Hizenkuni ominokami Tdayoshi(5 generation) with Shirosaya. 本作は五代近江守忠吉の作品です。 肥前刀特有の良く詰んだ地鉄に、逆さがかった丁子刃を焼いた貴重な作品です。 This piece is a work by Omi no Kami Tadayoshi, the 5th generation. It is a rare and valuable sword featuring the tightly forged jigane characteristic of Hizen swords, combined with an unusual inverted chōji hamon. 「刀姿 sword figure」 鎬造り庵棟、身幅尋常重やや厚く、鳥居反り中鋒が延びる。茎は生で切鑢がかかり、茎尻は栗尻。 「地鉄 jigane」 地鉄は杢目肌が良く詰み、地沸付く。 「刃紋 hamon」 刃紋は逆さがかった丁子刃、刃縁細かな沸が付き、足良く入り、砂流しかかり、刃中は葉、金筋が働く。釯子は刃紋成りに入り小丸に返る。 「特徴 detailed」 近江守忠吉(五代)、四代忠吉の嫡男として元禄九年に生まれる。二十一歳の時、初めて作品を披露する。刀匠銘は初め忠廣、父の死後直ちに忠吉を襲名する。 また寛延三年55歳の時に近江守を受領した。また彼は父と同じく八十歳まで生き、安永四年六月十五日に永眠した。 本作、肥前刀特有の良く詰んだ地鉄に、逆さがかった丁子刃を焼いた貴重な作品です。 Omi no Kami Tadayoshi (5th generation) was born in Genroku 9 (1696) as the eldest son of the 4th generation Tadayoshi. He presented his first sword at the age of 21. Initially, he signed his swords as Tadahiro but succeeded to the name Tadayoshi immediately after his father’s death. In Kan’en 3 (1750), at the age of 55, he was granted the honorary title “Omi no Kami.” Like his father, he lived to the age of 80 and passed away on June 15, An’ei 4 (1775). This piece is a precious work, featuring the tightly forged jigane typical of Hizen swords and a rare inverted chōji hamon. 「拵 Koshirae」 ハバキ(habaki) :素銅地銀着一重の腰祐乗。 鞘(Saya) :白鞘。 「刀剣の状態 condition of blade」 研:良好です。 傷:欠点に成るような傷はありません。
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As written by the shop
Shinto · Hizen · around 1748-1751
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 49%
Shinto · Hizen
105 pieces on the market now
The Hizen school began with a single domain commission. In Keicho 1 (1596) the Nabeshima of Hizen ordered Hashimoto Shinzaemon, the smith who would sign Tadayoshi, up to Kyoto with the carver Munenaga; there he entered the gate of Umetada Myoju and studied forging while Munenaga learned the chisel. The two returned to the province in Keicho 3 (1598), and Tadayoshi settled in the castle town below Saga, where under the domain's patronage the line grew into the dominant sword-making house of Kyushu. His own work runs from Keicho 5 (1600) to his death in Kan'ei 9 (1632); in Genna 10 (1624) he received the court title Musashi Daijo, changed his name to Tadahiro, and shifted his clan name from Minamoto to Fujiwara, so that the late Musashi Daijo blades are the founder under a second name. From him the house became a true generational institution: his son the second-generation Omi Daijo Tadahiro carried it forward as its most prolific hand, the third-generation Mutsu no Kami Tadayoshi returned its highest finish, and a Tosa no Kami branch took the founder's signature when he set it aside. Around this main line grew a circle of disciples and collateral hands, the waki-Hizen or Soba-Hizen smiths, several of them, like Yoshiie and Hironori, working as daisaku substitute makers whose own signed pieces are therefore scarce. The school's signature is its steel. Over a ko-itame forged so tightly it shows no slackness, fine ji-nie gathers in minute particles until the surface takes on the rice-bran konuka-hada (also written komenuka-hada) that no other school produces, fine chikei entering throughout and the ji notably clear and bright.
The orthodox temper laid upon it is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha, sometimes tinged with a shallow notare and ko-gunome, the nioiguchi deep with finely clustered ko-nie and tightened to a bright clarity, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru. The founder aimed this suguha toward the Rai school yet departed from it, his nioiguchi tighter and his forging carrying more vigor; the third generation refined it to what the published sources call the strongest and most precise hand of the first three generations. Against that calm register the house also worked a showier one, the Hizen choji-midare mixing gunome, long ashi, kinsuji and sunagashi, a manner the published sources already find more often in the founder's late Musashi Daijo work than in his Tadayoshi years, and one the second generation made his own. The branches pushed further from the suguha standard: Tadakuni of the Ogi domain ran sunagashi more conspicuously than any other Hizen hand and reached toward old Ichimonji in his o-choji; Masahiro and Yukihiro favored a flamboyant long-ashi choji over the calm main line; and the Iyo no Jo Munetsugu line worked apart in the Soshu-den, building a midareba on notare with a pointed togariba and a jihada that tends to stand and tone slightly blackish. A collector seeks Hizen-to first for that steel, and reads it the same way the appraiser does: a bright suguha lying over a clear, tight konuka-hada identifies the school before the signature is consulted, and the quiet ko-maru boshi on the ura-signed tang confirms the main-line practice. Generation and branch are then told within that frame, the third generation's powerful sugata recalling not his father but his grandfather, the waki-Hizen hands set apart by their irregular temper, their sujikai file marks and a sashi-ura signature, the Munetsugu line by its Soshu togari. The main line, made in real numbers across so long a span, reaches the market more readily than any Kamakura master, so a papered example is within reach of a patient collector, while the founder's own work and the finest konuka-suguha of the third generation come to open hands only from time to time. Provenance runs back through the house the school served, blades recorded to Nabeshima Katsushige and Nabeshima Naomoto and passing onward to the Owari Tokugawa, the Satake and the Imperial families; documentary inscriptions sharpen the picture further, a Myoju soemei attesting the founder's discipleship, Umetada carving adding flowers to brocade on his late blades, and the gold-inlaid cutting tests of Yamano Kanjuro and Yamano Ka'emon, rare on Hizen work, naming the edge as well as the hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1596-1632 | 155 |
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1660-1686 | 61 |
| Tadahiro忠廣 | 1633-1693 | 133 |
| Masahiro正廣 | 1624-1655 | 30 |
| Tadakuni忠國 | 1648-1652 | 32 |
Hizen: a domain enterprise
Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
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.
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