Sukesada School

祐定

Juyo
Vol. 11, No. 64
ProvinceBizenTraditionBizen-denCodeNS-Sukesada
Kokuhō
Jūyō Bunkazai1
Jūyō Bijutsuhin8
Gyobutsu3
Tokubetsu Jūyō2
Jūyō Tōken104
118Designated works
11Named makers
100%100% signed
97%97% specific makers
67On the market

Periods

Stylistic phases across the school's history

1441–1596

Sue-Bizen

末備前

115Designated
Jūyō101
TokuJū2
Jūbi8

100% signed

School attribution

3Designated

School-level mumei attributions across the subtree

Overview

Sukesada (祐定) is the great name of late- , the most prosperous of the forges that scholars group together as . The signature was carried by a body of smiths so large that the early-modern reference Hayami-dashi lists as many as twenty-one who appended a zokumyo (common name) to distinguish themselves, and the published commentary is blunt that of all the late- families the Sukesada line was the largest and most productive. Two registers of work issue from this single name. At the top stand the masters identified by their common-name titles, Yosozaemon-no-jo, Hikobei-no-jo, Genbei-no-jo, and Hikozaemon-no-jo, whose custom commissions (chumon-uchi) the sources distinguish sharply from the mass run; beneath them lies the great body of kazu-uchi-mono, the bulk production signed plainly Sukesada with no personal name, dated and placed to the house by era and quality. Hikobei-no-jo is recorded as the father of Yosozaemon-no-jo, who in turn heads the most distinguished branch, born in Onin 1 by back-count from a inscribed at age seventy-one in Tenbun 6; the name then runs in -signature generations down through the Eiroku and Tensho years.

The shared vocabulary of the school is the temper the late workshops made their own. Over a of tightly packed , fine settling like dust, woven through, and a faint rising near the (the thinned last trace of the bright reflection that filled the prime), the smiths build an open-waisted that develops into the doubled, compound structure marking a blade above all else. Mixed into it run , , and pointed , in places gathering into the double-flower juka and the crab's-claw formation called kani-no-; the is -based with adhering, and entering richly, and trailing, the bright and clear. A second pole answers this flamboyance, the quiet , broad and shallowly undulating with folded in, of which Genbei-no-jo in particular was the master, while a livelier climbs the body with frequent and on certain , often in . The blades take the robust late- form, wide in body with little taper, thick in , deep in with and an extended . The divergence between the masters and the general production is one of care rather than kind: Yosozaemon's bright, well-packed and his command of all three registers, , , and , set his typical work apart from the coarser bulk, and the commentary states plainly that it is precisely because such chumon-uchi exist that the name carries its high standing.

To a Sukesada blade is first to read the signature register, then the manner. A named master signs a long on the with the date on the , often over two columns and frequently with carving (, a dragon, a , or the invocation Namu ); the bulk kazu-uchi-mono sign Sukesada alone and are judged to the house by era and the - keynote of on bright . Yosozaemon-no-jo leads the name in renown and breadth, ranked beside the late- Kiyomitsu among the two great hands of the workshop's closing age, his blades transmitted in houses grounded in their own provenance, the Hachisuka, the Mori, and the Ii, with a recorded to the warrior Yamanaka Shikanosuke and others in the Imperial collection. Genbei-no-jo and Hikobei-no-jo follow, their custom blades often carrying an owner inscription beside the date, and Hikozaemon-no-jo offers the approachable end of a famous name. The Sukesada cutting reputation runs through the whole body, the heavy made to be worn and used two-handed as the fell from use. For the collector this is the most attainable of the great names, never common at its summit yet, in a signed and dated example with the open-waisted reading clearly down its edge, the surest single document of how worked in its last great generation.

Designations

118 designated · 11 named makers

Designation standing

0.32 weighted designation index across 118 designated works

Top 30% of schools

Stats as of 6/17/2026

Provenance

21 works with recorded provenance

Provenance standing

2.52 provenance index across 21 provenanced works

Top 32% of schools

Top masters

Ranked by elite standing (top-tier designations weighted)

  1. 1.Sukesada祐定1504-154273
    61.9% of school
  2. 2.Sukesada祐定1532-155518
    15.3% of school
  3. 3.Sukesada祐定1532-15928
    6.8% of school
  4. 4.Sukesada祐定1487-15215
    4.2% of school
  5. 5.Sukesada祐定1573-15922
    1.7% of school
  6. 6.Sukesada祐定1543-15912
    1.7% of school
  7. 7.Sukesada祐定1596-16152
    1.7% of school
  8. 8.Sukesada祐定1573-15922
    1.7% of school
  9. 9.Sukesada祐定1570-15921
    0.9% of school
  10. 10.Sukesada祐定1615-16241
    0.9% of school

Within

  1. Osafune

Currently available