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About the school

Mino Senjuin School美濃千手院派

Akasaka in Mino Province was the seat of a group the NBTHK setsumei records under two names, Mino Senjuin and Akasaka Senjuin, and the documents are consistent on its descent: the line traces to the Yamato Senjuin tradition, whose craftsmen relocated north into Mino. The setsumei place that migration around the end of the Nanbokuchō period, with the group then flourishing into the Muromachi. According to the *Kōsei Kotō Meikan* as cited, the founder was Kuninaga, set around the Jōji years, with the line carrying the Kuninaga name onward to the Meiō era; Kunishige is placed near Kenmu and is represented by surviving work. The smiths the setsumei name span this arc: Kuninaga, Kunishige, and Kuniyuki of the Nanbokuchō; the joint spear-makers Hironaga and Hiroshige and the ancient smith Tōga of the Muromachi; and later hands signing Dōei, Dōin, Yasumichi, or simply Senjuin. The documents also chart a parallel current, the Echizen smith Kuniyuki of Tsuruga (signing Esshū or Etsushū) who entered Mino between Ōan 6 and 7, alongside Kaneshige and Tametsugu who likewise moved from Echizen. The shared vocabulary of these blades begins in the forging: *itame* mixed with *mokume* that flows toward *masame*, with grain that stands out (*hada-dachi*), *ji-nie*, *chikei*, and a whitish cast (*shirake-gokoro*) the setsumei return to repeatedly. The temper divides along two lines the documents describe as habitual. One is a slender *suguha* or *ko-notare* with *ko-gunome*, in which the *habuchi* shows fraying (*hotsure*) and a *kuichigai-ba* enters near the *fukura*, with *sunagashi*, *kinsuji*, and *ko-nie*, the temper the Senjuin spears carry as "reminiscent of old Yamato blades." The other runs hotter: *notare* mixed with *gunome*, abundant *nie*, *yubashiri*, *tobiyaki*, and *muneyaki* building toward *hitatsura*, the manner that marks the Echizen Kuniyuki current. The *bōshi* tends to *midare-komi* with *hakikake* and a pointed return. To recognize the hand, the setsumei direct attention to the masame-bearing, whitish *ji* carrying Yamato traits of *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba*, set against a *gunome* base that leans toward emerging *Mino-den* character. For kantei the documents are explicit that this line "consistently displays a stronger Yamato character" than the Seki-mono otherwise encountered, and that its *hamon* "stands at a considerable remove from typical Mino workmanship," though the *jigane* keeps it within that milieu. Signed pieces carrying an individual maker's name are noted as scarce, which raises the documentary weight of the dated and signed examples the setsumei single out: the Kuninaga *tantō* dated Ōan gannen, the signed Kunishige and Kuniyuki *tachi*, and the Esshū Kuniyuki *wakizashi* dated Sadaji and Ōan whose signatures incorporate Fujiwara. Among named works the setsumei cite the *ōmi-yari* signed Senjuin with its vermilion-lacquered long-shaft mounting, the joint spear of Hironaga and Hiroshige, and the *wakizashi* by Tōga held to copy the Genji treasure Higekiri. Provenance is recorded for the Tōga piece, formerly of Tanzan Shrine in Yamato and donated to the Imperial Household, with two further Tanzan blades assigned to the Nanbokuchō. The documents place these works across Tokubetsu-Jūyō, Jūyō, and Imperial registers, reading the group as a Yamato offshoot that carried its masame-grounded manner into Mino while the *gunome* base turned toward *Mino-den*.

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