Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchShinto Mumei with Koshirae. 無銘の新刀期の脇差です。美しく流れる柾目肌や刃紋の様子から、仙台國包系の刀工の作である可能性が高いと思われます。 刀身、拵のコンディションは良好です。 This is an unsigned wakizashi from the Shinto period. Based on the beautifully flowing masame-hada and the characteristics of the hamon, it is likely the work of a swordsmith from the Sendai Kunimasa lineage. The condition of both the blade and the koshirae is good. 「刀姿 sword figure」 鎬造り庵棟、身幅重尋常、鳥居反り中鋒。茎は大筋違い鑢がかかる、区は送られていないが、茎尻は一文字に切られる。 Shinogi-zukuri with an iori-mune (peaked back), the blade has standard width and thickness, with torii-style curvature and a medium-sized kissaki. The tang (nakago) has O-sujikai (large slanted) file marks. The machi have not been moved (machi-okuri has not been performed), and the tang tip is cut straight in an ichimonji shape. 「地鉄 jigane」 地鉄は柾目肌が流れ、地沸付き、地景入る。 The jigane (surface steel) shows flowing masame-hada (straight grain pattern), with ji-nie (fine crystalline particles) attached and chikei (dark steel lines) visible within the surface. 「刃紋 hamon」 刃紋は互の目乱れ、刃縁荒沸が付き、刃中は金筋が働く。釯子は乱れ込み履き掛け小丸に返る。 The hamon is gunome-midare (irregular semicircular pattern), with coarse nie (ara-nie) along the habuchi. Within the hamon, active kinsuji are visible. The boshi is midare-komi (irregular into the tip), showing hakikake activity, and turns back in a ko-maru (small rounded) form. 「特徴 detailed」 本作は無銘の新刀期の脇差です。美しく流れる柾目肌や刃紋の様子から、仙台國包系の刀工の作である可能性が高いと思われます。 本刀は、柾目肌に地沸が付き、互の目乱れを焼いた優れた脇差です。区は送られておらず、そのままですが、茎尻は一文字に切られています。 刀身および拵のコンディションは良好です。 This is an unsigned Shinto-period wakizashi. Judging from the beautifully flowing masame-hada and the style of the hamon, it is likely the work of a swordsmith from the Sendai Kunimasa lineage. This piece features a fine masame-hada with ji-nie, and is tempered in an active gunome-midare hamon, making it an excellent wakizashi. The machi have not been moved, although the tang tip has been cut straight in an ichimonji shape. 「拵 Koshirae」 ハバキ(habaki) :素銅地二重、上蓋は金鍍金、下蓋は銀鍍金。 鍔(tsuba) :鉄地風車透かし。 縁頭(fhchikashira):赤銅魚子地鉄線花の図。 小柄(kozuka) :素銅魚子地秋虫の図(現代)。 柄(tsuka) :鮫は親粒が付き巻鮫。柄巻は正絹黒の諸捻り巻。 鞘(saya) :黒の油滴塗。 「刀剣の状態 condition of blade」 研:良好です。 傷:欠点に成るような傷は有りません。
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Yamato-den · Rikuzen
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Below Sendai Castle, at Kokubu Wakabayashi in Miyagi District of Ōshū (later Rikuzen, present-day Sendai), the first Kunikane established a forge that served the Date house across the early shintō period. The setsumei record him as a member of the Hongō family, first called Genzō and later Yoshinosuke, born in Bunroku 1 (1592), who claimed descent from a later branch of Yamato Hōshō Gorō. As a retained smith (kakae-kaji) of Date Masamune he was sent by his lord's command to Kyoto in Keichō 19 (1614), where he studied under Etchū no Kami Masatoshi; he received the court title Yamashiro Daijō in Kan'ei 3 (1626), took the tonsure upon Masamune's death in Kan'ei 13 (1636) under such Buddhist names as Ninzawa Yōe and Yōkei, retired in Shōhō 2 (1645) at fifty-four, and died in Kanbun 4 (1664) at seventy-three. The house continued through his legitimate son, the second-generation Kunikane (Hongō Kichiemon), born Keichō 17 (1612), who succeeded to the headship in 1645 and received the title Yamashiro no Kami in Kanbun 7 (1667). Other Sendai hands appear in the register as well: a Rinsuke (倫助) of the same lineage as Anrin signing "Ōshū Kokubu Sendai-jū," and later signatures reading Yōe Kunikane and the Shōwa-era Yōke Kunitsutsumi, carrying the line forward. What binds these blades into one hand is the deliberate transplant of the Yamato-den Hōshō manner onto Sendai steel. The setsumei describe the first generation as turning, in an age when the Sōshū tradition was widely practiced, toward the working range of the Yamato Hōshō line: a high shinogi, a forged masame-hada, and a suguha-based temper.
Recognition begins in the kitae, a masame-hada running well throughout, often tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine chikei entering and ji-nie adhering thickly over clear steel; a mizukage frequently rises from below the machi, called a habitual trait of both first and second generations. The temper is a chū- or hiro-suguha carrying a shallow notare, into which uchi-noke, hotsure, kuichigai-ba, and a nijūba-like effect mingle along the habuchi, with deep nioi, well-adhering nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi running through; the bōshi runs straight and tends toward yakizume with vigorous hakikake. Generations divide on detail rather than idiom: the first generation's strongest pieces show the masame at its most ordered with a bright nioiguchi, while the second generation, equally schooled in the family specialty, sometimes works toward gunome-midare and finishes with a quiet warmth; certain late first-generation works, such as the dated Kan'ei 19 katana, depart unusually into a primarily itame ground with whitish utsuri. For kantei the register fixes the points plainly: ordered masame with ji-nie and chikei, the suguha-and-hotsure edge with masame carried into a yakizume boshi, and the rising mizukage habit. The signature itself is a marker, the setsumei noting that from Kan'ei 9 (1632) the grass-radical of the character 藤 begins to be chiseled as separated strokes resembling a "#," and that the rarer "Yōe" form and examples bearing Kunitsugu's kaō carry documentary weight. Named works anchor the line: a Tokubetsu-Jūyō katana signed Yamashiro Daijō Fujiwara Kunikane transmitted in the Uwajima Date family, with an iron tsuba signed Myōchin Sōhei; first- and second-generation katana recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection; a Jūyō wakizashi bearing the kuyō crest of the Date house said to have been bestowed by Masamune; and a katana carrying a Yamano Ka'emon cutting-test inscription dated Kanbun 4. The setsumei place the first generation's best blades at a level close to, and at points surpassing, the old Hōshō master, and present the Sendai Kunikane house as the enduring carrier of the Yamato Hōshō manner under Date patronage through the Edo period. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunikane國包 | 1624-1644 | 35 |
| Kunikane國包 | 1644-1670 | 10 |
| Kaneshige包重 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
| Tomosuke倫助 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
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