The Bizen flame relit in the shintō age. Tracing themselves to Ōmi, the Ishidō smiths spread to Edo, Kishū and Chikuzen and forged chōji-midare in the manner of the Kamakura Ichimonji masters — flamboyant hamon two centuries after the old fires went out. Korekazu in Edo, Tatsumune in Kishū, Koretsugu in Chikuzen: branch lines of one house, prized wherever the old Bizen style burns again.
The The Ishidō School (石堂), active 1600–1800 in Ōmi Province across 35 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 0 Jūbi, 3 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 96 Jūyō.
Korekazu (是一) — Mainline · 1817-1891. Jūyō. A katana dated Bunkyū 2 (1862), made in his forty-fifth year, is singled out by the published sources as an especially outstanding blade in the Bizen manner he favoured, the clarity of both *ji* and *ha* splendid. Its maker, Ishidō Unju Korekazu, was born in Yonezawa in Dewa and known by the common name Masatarō. He was a nephew of the Yonezawa domain smith Katō Chōunsai Tsunatoshi and first learned forging under him. He then became the son-in-law of the sixth Ishidō Korekazu and succeeded as the seventh head of the Edo Ishidō house, dying in Meiji 24 (1891) at the age of seventy-five. His working life ran from the closing years of Tenpō into early Meiji, and comparatively many of his works survive. The published commentary counts him among the leading masters of the *Shinshintō* period, standing shoulder to shoulder in skill with Jirōtarō Naokatsu and Hosokawa Masayoshi.
The published sources describe his hand through a method rather than a motif, and they state it in nearly the same words entry after entry. His work divides broadly into two modes, *Bizen-den* and *Sōshū-den*, but his true forte was the Bizen *chōji* that may be called the hereditary specialty of the Ishidō house. Whereas many *Shinshintō* smiths working in the Bizen manner tempered their *chōji* in *nioi-deki*, Korekazu tempered his in *nie-deki*, and the commentary concludes that "in this one can discern his originality"[[c:1]]. Two entries put the reputation in a phrase: he is the smith described as having "tempered Bizen-style *chōji-midare* in *nie*"[[c:2]]. One entry also gives the development behind it. His early works, like those of his teacher Tsunatoshi, show a tight *nioiguchi* and a *chōji-midare* with *ashi*; in later years he tempered this *chōji* in small *nie*, which the source says brought a further degree of variation into the *ha*[[c:3]].
On the typical blade the *chōji* is mixed with *gunome*, *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and slightly pointed elements. The *ashi* enter long and frequently, the *nioi* is deep, and the *nie* lies thick, with patches of coarser *nie* that leave the temper a little uneven. *Sunagashi* runs through the *ha* on about three of every four of his blades, often joined by *kinsuji* and *nie-suji*, and the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. The *jigane* is a tightly forged *ko-itame*, at times mixed with *mokume* or flowing grain. Its *ji-nie* lies in a fine, thick cover with fine *chikei* entering frequently, and where it packs hardest it approaches a *muji-fū* surface. One entry singles out this forging as especially strong even within his own work[[c:4]]. The *bōshi* runs *midare-komi* to a *ko-maru*, often with *hakikake*, and one entry finds in its handling the mannerisms of Tsunatoshi, from which it infers a stylistic tie between the two smiths. The blades are robust *ubu* katana, wide in body with thick *kasane*, the point a long *chū-kissaki* or an *ō-kissaki*, the tang finished with *ō-sujikai* file marks and a long signature.
Beside this Bizen core the published sources record other registers. Korekazu, one entry notes, himself claimed a proficiency in *Sōshū-den*[[c:5]], though most of his finest works are Bizen. A *daishō* of Ansei 2 (1855) succeeds in the Sōshū manner and comes with a formal *rō-nuri* *kamishimo-zashi* mounting whose full set of fittings is by Yokoya Sōju. A *gassaku* katana with the Aizu smith Kakuda-suke Gengō, his exact contemporary, records that Gengō forged the blade and Korekazu applied the temper; the judges found that it seems "entirely the work of Korekazu"[[c:6]]. The rarest face is *suguha*. A long, robust katana of Ansei 5 (1858) over a *muji-fū* forging carries a *suguha*-based temper with *gunome*, deep in *nioi* with a bright *nioiguchi*, and the source calls it "a comparatively gentle style" for him[[c:7]].
The record keeps returning to the same blades as his measure. Of one Juyo katana, whose *ko-itame* carries dust-fine thick *ji-nie* and whose temper shows *kinsuji* and *nie-suji* with unusual vigour, the commentary writes that it is "a blade in which the true specialty of Korekazu is brought forth without reservation, demonstrating an exceptionally distinguished workmanship"[[c:8]]. Other long blades with *ō-kissaki* are praised for holding together without strain despite their length. His work also carries the marks of its moment. One katana is carved with the characters printed in the source as 「譲夷」, a carving the entry reads as showing the temper of the age. Another was made for Sanada Kōkan, a retainer of the Sendai Date house, and its tang carries a verse in *man'yōgana*: 「この太刀に貯めし心は身一つよ、守るたまかは我が君のため」 ("the heart I have stored in this tachi is but one: to protect, indeed, for my lord").
Fujishiro grades him *Jō saku*, and the *Tōkō Taikan* values him at four hundred. He has no National Treasure and no Important Cultural Property. Twenty-four of his katana are designated Juyo, at sessions from 1964 to 2022, and a twenty-fifth, a katana dated Kaei 6 (1853), is recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection. That entry adds a note of regret: his was the era of the Meiji sword ban, and "it is regrettable that he could not fully exercise his skill"[[c:9]]. All of these blades are signed, and most are dated. Because comparatively many survive, a signed, dated Korekazu katana comes to market from time to time rather than once in a generation, and a sound example in his *nie-deki chōji* is among the more attainable ways to hold the late Bizen revival at its most personal.
Nagayuki (長幸) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Tokujū, Jūyō. A katana signed in full Tatara Nagayuki and dated Jōkyō 4 (1687), inscribed on the reverse that it was forged with nanban-tetsu, is the kind of blade by which this Osaka master is known: a wide, robust body, a fine ko-itame jigane over which a clear midare-utsuri stands, and a chōji temper that revives the old Bizen Ichimonji in the Shintō age. The published sources record Nagayuki as a native of Kishū who styled himself Shirōbei, became a disciple of Kawachi no Kami Yasunaga of the Kishū Ishidō line, and moved with that vein to Osaka, where he took the name Osaka Ishidō and was active in the Tenna and Jōkyō years of the late seventeenth century. They describe him as a craftsman 「師に優る技量の持主」[[c:1]], one whose skill surpassed that of his teacher, and rank him the foremost maker of the Bizen tradition among Shintō smiths, 「新刀の備前伝中の第一人者」[[c:2]]. Dated work by him is exceedingly rare, only Tenna and Jōkyō years surviving, so a dated piece is treated as precious documentary material for the study of his career.
The hand for which Nagayuki is named is the Ichimonji-aim, which the published sources call the Ishidō school's hereditary art, 「石堂派本来の御家芸ともいうべき一文字」[[c:3]]. On a wide, lofty katana he tempers a flamboyant chōji-midare in which ō-chōji is mixed with ko-chōji and pointed togariba, with ashi and yō entering vigorously and juka-chōji-style double clusters appearing in places. The nioiguchi is tight and bright, with ko-nie added and small tobiyaki interspersed, and on the longest blades the chōji is fired tall and grand without being overwhelmed by the imposing form. The opposite pole of his work takes Sue-Bizen as its model: a koshi-no-hiraita gunome carried as the principal theme, into which a compound fukushiki manner is woven, what the older commentary names 「いわゆる蟹爪風の複式互の目」[[c:4]], the so-called crab-claw compound gunome. The published sources read this vein as taken chiefly from Yosozaemon Sukesada, and note that one chōji-led example may instead have looked to Katsumitsu, the Sue-Bizen smith in whom clove stands out most conspicuously.
The jigane beneath both manners is the foundation of his standing. Nagayuki forges a fine ko-itame, at times mixing mokume or a flowing nagare-hada near the shinogi, with dust-fine ji-nie adhering thickly and fine chikei entering, and over it a clear midare-utsuri stands. This Bizen-revival reflection is rare among the Osaka smiths and is the feature the published sources warn makes his work 「時代を古く見あやまり易い」[[c:5]], easy to mistake for an older Bizen date, the masame in the shinogi-ji and a comparatively unpolished bōshi being the points by which the Shintō hand is told. Within the temper run ashi and yō, ko-nie and fine sunagashi, with small kinsuji and stray yubashiri in places, the nioiguchi tightening and clearing. The bōshi closes in midare-komi, the tip turning pointed and returning deeply or long, a feature the published sources name as consistent through his work and the personal mark that separates his revival from the Ichimonji and Sue-Bizen models he copies.
The two manners are not periods but choices the same hand makes, and the published sources draw them as a single 二様, two types under one craftsman. On the Sue-Bizen side his copying reaches beyond the temper to the bearing of the model, the short, somewhat stubby length with sakizori, so that the sugata too follows Sue-Bizen, and one wide ō-kissaki katana with a gold-inlaid cutting-test inscription is read as a faithful Yosozaemon Sukesada copy even in its silhouette. On the Ichimonji side the chōji is read as a personal devotion to Bizen Ichimonji, the shisuku of an ideal rather than a school inheritance worn lightly. His surviving production is concentrated in robust, wide katana, signed in long-mei, several carrying added inscriptions that the steel was nanban-tetsu or chigusa-tetsu, the latter a Harima iron the published sources explain he obtained through the Osaka iron wholesalers, a detail that opens a window onto the iron trade of his day. A matched daishō, both blades dated Jōkyō 3 and inscribed as forged with chigusa-tetsu, survives as well, exceptionally rare among his dated work and thought to have been a special commission.
What sets Nagayuki apart within the Ishidō family, spread across Kishū, Osaka, Edo and Fukuoka, is the completeness of his Bizen revival, the published sources singling him out as 「新刀中備前伝作家の第一人者」[[c:6]]. The Ishidō schools carried the Bizen Ichimonji tradition transplanted into Shintō centers, and the clove temper was their house art, but Nagayuki is the hand that reproduced jigane, temper and form together, the midare-utsuri standing as convincingly as the chōji is florid. His finest Ichimonji-aim katana are called works in which 「長幸の本領が遺憾なく発揮された一作」[[c:7]], his true strengths fully manifested, and the best of his Sukesada copies are read as faithful down to the silhouette. The pointed, deep-returning bōshi and the tight, bright nioiguchi remain his own throughout, the steady undertone beneath whichever Bizen model he sets out to recover.
For the collector Nagayuki is graded Jō-jō saku by Fujishiro, and his work has no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; the designated record runs instead through two Tokubetsu Jūyō katana and a body of Jūyō blades, ten in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers among the pieces here. Provenance is thin but real, the recorded name being General Tani Tateki, the Meiji military figure and noted sword enthusiast whose collection held more than one of his katana, recorded in red lacquer and as a former holding. Most designated blades by him are held rather than traded, and a robust dated example carries enough scholarly weight that it is treated as study material first, so one reaching the market is uncommon, a landmark for a private collector when it does. The published sources call his masterworks 「同工屈指の名品」, among the finest of his production, the high point of the Shintō Bizen revival set down by a Kishū smith who carried the Ichimonji and Sukesada into the swords of early-Edo Osaka.
Sukekuni (祐國) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Jūyō. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Mitsuhira (光平) — Mainline · 1619-1685. Tokujū, Jūyō. On the omote of a katana dated Shoho 3 (1646), eighth month, cut on the shinogi-suji in a large, bold five-character hand and joined on the reverse by a gold-inlaid cutting test, stands the earliest dated work that survives from Heki Mitsuhira, the Tokubetsu Juyo blade the published sources call the most retrograde of his dated pieces and a resource of exceptional value for the study of him. Mitsuhira signed Minamoto Mitsuhira, and sometimes Heki Dewa-no-kami Minamoto Mitsuhira beneath a chrysanthemum crest; he was born in Gamo district of Omi[[c:1]], eldest son of Yamashiro-no-kami Ippo of the Kyo-Ishido line, and first styled himself Heki Shichirobei. He stands, the NBTHK states plainly, as one of the most outstandingly skilled smiths who represent the Edo Ishido[[c:2]], the equal and senior of Tsushima-no-kami Tsunemitsu and one of the two pillars of that school. His program was a revival: to forge again, in the bright nioi of the early-Edo workshops, the gorgeous choji-midare of the old Bizen Fukuoka-Ichimonji that the medieval makers had carried over a midare-utsuri jigane.
The feature that names his work is the choji-midare itself, and the published sources read it as his forte. He tempers it chiefly in nioi, mixing many kinds of teeth into one lively, crowded line: gunome and ko-gunome, round-topped choji and small choji, angular elements and others tending to a point. The yakiba rises and falls in marked height, ashi and yo enter vigorously, and the nioiguchi runs bright and clear. The result is what the institution calls a splendid choji-midare that recalls the old Ichimonji[[c:3]], and across his blades the NBTHK names the achievement the same way each time, a piece in which he privately emulated the old Ichimonji and succeeded[[c:4]]. On his most florid katana small tobiyaki gather at the heads of the temper and fine sunagashi is drawn through it, touches the sources read as lending an antique flavor to the otherwise new-sword brightness.
The jigane beneath that temper is what carries the Ichimonji comparison the rest of the way. He forges a ko-itame or an itame mixed with mokume and flowing hada, tightly worked, with the ji-nie gathered dust-fine, and over it stands a clear midare-utsuri, the koto-Bizen reflection that almost no other Edo hand reaches with such conviction. It is the single feature of the jigane that most marks his revival, the old reflection raised again on a shinto blade, and the published sources note it as prominent on piece after piece. The boshi answers the flamboyance of the ha quietly, running straight or in a small midare into a ko-maru, turning back shallowly, often with a touch of hakikake at the point. Ji and ha alike are described as sound, the steel bright rather than dark, the whole reading as Bizen seen through the cleaner light of the Kanbun forges.
Mitsuhira is best understood not through dated periods, since his dated blades are few, but as one perfected manner read at two intensities and set on the build of his age. The constant is the choji-midare over its utsuri; the variation is the nioiguchi. On his finest pieces the published sources mark a tightening and a further brightening, writing of the Tokubetsu Juyo katana that, in comparison with his usual works, the nioiguchi is somewhat tighter and shines with a particularly bright clarity[[c:5]], and that even among his oeuvre it shows an exceptional sharpness of effect[[c:6]]. His blades carry the broad body, the thick kasane and the contracted chu-kissaki of the Kanbun era, yet the sources read the silhouette carefully as a transitional one: at a glance it recalls the Kanbun-shinto shape, but the sori stands somewhat more and a touch of funbari remains at the base, a transitional shape in the shift from Keicho-shinto toward Kanbun-shinto[[c:7]] common to the smiths of the Kan'ei and Shoho years. He signs a long mei of distinctive script in bold, thick chisel strokes on the ubu nakago, sometimes under the chrysanthemum crest with his titles Dewa-no-kami and Dewa-nyudo Taishin hokkyo.
What sets him apart within his own school is finally a matter of the signature, and the published sources make the point through the very biography they repeat. By the common account Mitsuhira moved from Omi to Edo alongside Tsunemitsu, Echizen-no-kami Munehiro and the first Ishido Korekazu, but the NBTHK corrects both the route and the kinship from surviving inscriptions. The Akasaka-signed blades show that the Edo Ishido smiths went first from Omi to Kyoto and only afterward on to Edo rather than directly; and the old tradition that Mitsuhira was Tsunemitsu's younger brother is set aside, since dated pieces worked back show that he was in fact six years the elder[[c:8]]. He used the Minamoto surname while Tsunemitsu used Tachibana, and for that reason, though their workmanship is granted to share much, the brotherhood is doubted. The two are thus the twin masters of the Edo Ishido whose hands run close and whose names part only at the mei, and it is in Mitsuhira's that the Ichimonji revival is reckoned to have succeeded most fully.
Mitsuhira's record on the official rolls is concentrated and high in quality rather than large: of his designated works ten stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, the single Tokubetsu Juyo being the Shoho 3 katana with its gold-inlaid three-body cutting test, the rest Juyo. His designations rise no higher than these, and his blades enter the records signed, every one of them, so that his oeuvre is an open book read off the long mei rather than a body of mumei attributions. Fujishiro rates him Jo-jo saku, the upper-superior grade. The provenance recorded on these blades is thin, with no daimyo house or museum named in their own data, and what survives of him is held quietly in private and public hands. For the collector this is a smith encountered from time to time rather than freely: a designated Edo Ishido katana of his comes to market only now and again, a landmark when one does, prized as the high point of the school's Ichimonji revival and recognized at sight by the bright choji-midare standing over its old-Bizen utsuri.
Yasusada (安定) — Mainline · 1618-1685. Jūyō. On the reverse of a katana now in Kochi is cut a gold-inlaid inscription recording a two-body cutting test performed at Edo in Bushu in Manji 2 by Yamano Kaemon-no-jo Nagahisa, and the same hand signed the omote Yamato-no-kami Yasusada in a bold five-character mei. That pairing of a robust signed blade with a Yamano test-cut runs through almost the whole of Yasusada's surviving work and is the readiest mark of him. He was born in Genna 4 (1618) under the surname Tomita, read Tonda, and the published sources, following the Shinto Bengi, now place his origin not in Echizen, as was long believed, but in the Kishu Ishido group, from which he came up to Edo by Keian 1 to become one of the representative makers of the Kanbun-shinto era. The older account that made him a pupil of the first-generation Echizen Yasutsugu the published sources reject on chronological reasoning, since a blade inscribed made at age fifty-three and dated Kanbun 10 fixes his birth in Genna 4, three years before that master's death; the strongest reading instead makes him a pupil of Izumi-no-kami Kaneshige, on the evidence of shared workmanship, tang construction, and the common presence of the Yamano cutting inscriptions.
His sugata is the heavy katana of the mid-seventeenth century, shinogi-zukuri with iori-mune, the sori shallow, the shinogi high and the shinogi-ji broad relative to the blade width, with a sense of funbari at the base and a compact chu-kissaki, the kasane often thick and the build frankly robust. Over this he forges a tightly packed ko-itame, mokume mixed in and at times conspicuous on the ura, the steel taking on a somewhat blackish tone where the grain stands a little; into it dust-fine ji-nie settles thickly and fine chikei enter well, so that the jigane reads as close and bright in his best Edo work. The temper that most distinguishes him is a notare carrying gunome whose heads and valleys turn angular, mixed with ko-gunome and somewhat pointed elements, the nioi deep and ko-nie adhering well, with coarse nie intermixed here and there until the line grows uneven, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running through, and the nioiguchi inclining to a subdued, shizumi tone. The published sources name that angularity of the midare, together with the shizumi nioiguchi and the steep drop of the iori-mune, as the points by which his hand is told.
The boshi answers the temper below it, running sugu or shallowly notare and turning back in ko-maru, sometimes with a slightly deep return, the tip frequently brushed into hakikake; on one Manji wakizashi the omote is straight while the ura carries a faint notare nuance, the kind of small asymmetry that recurs across his work. Activity outside the yakiba is part of the picture as well: small yubashiri-like tobiyaki drift through the ji on some blades, and the nakago, ubu and finished with ha-agari kurijiri and steep o-sujikai file marks, is itself a Yamano-consistent feature that the published sources count among the evidence for the Kaneshige attribution. Horimono is uncommon, though one early wakizashi carries gomabashi on both faces, short on the omote and long on the ura.
The published record divides his work into two manners, in a sentence that recurs almost verbatim across his designations: 「安定の作風は、大別すると二様があり、一つはのたれに互の目を交え、のたれが角ばる傾向のものと、他は互の目を主調とした乱れ刃であり、同作中では、前者の作例が多い」. The first and more numerous is the angular notare mixed with gunome described above; the second is a midareba led by gunome, rising at times into a large, high-tempered pattern of o-gunome with abundant kinsuji, nie-suji and sunagashi, a more florid result that the sources count the rarer of the two. The angular gunome read within the second manner ties it back to the first and lets his individuality be seen even where the pattern is least typical. His dated works run from Keian through Enpo, but the published sources regard the Manji era as his time of full maturity, noting that 「万治頃が大成期とみられ、最も覇気のある作品が多い」.
In standing he is read against the smiths nearest his own hand rather than against his nominal teacher: the published sources find his manner closest to Izumi-no-kami Kaneshige, with whom he shares the clarity of ji and ha, the tang construction and the Yamano inscriptions, and at times close to Izumi-no-kami Kanesada, while in style his blades are said to share elements with Kotetsu, the celebrated Edo contemporary whose robust katana his own most resemble. His bond with the test-cutter is the firmest thread of all: among Edo smiths only Kotetsu carries the Yamano family's gold-inlaid cutting inscriptions in comparable density, and the published sources record that on Yasusada the count of Nagahisa's test-cuts is reckoned 「馬徹とほぼ同数かそれを上回ると思われる数」, roughly equal to or exceeding that on Kotetsu. A second generation also signed Yamato-no-kami Yasusada, but its output is extremely scarce, so that the name in practice belongs to the first.
Yasusada's blades survive in the Juyo tier, his record carrying no higher designation; the twenty blades on official record here are all Juyo, every one of them signed and eighteen carrying the gold-inlaid Yamano cutting test. Provenance attaches to the test-cutter himself, the gold-inlaid inscriptions of Yamano Kaemon-no-jo Nagahisa, called Eikyu, standing on the reverse of his finest work, with one sword also naming a holder, Ichiha Sanshiro, whom the published sources leave to further research. The twelfth-session masterpiece in Akita the NBTHK calls 「同作中の傑作の一本である」, and of the broad, robust Manji katana in Kochi it writes 「豪壮な造込みに相応しい出来映えを示した本作は同工の入念且つ会心の一口と言えよう」. A signed Yasusada with its Yamano test-cut intact is not beyond the reach of a serious collector in the way the highest-designated blades are, since most of his record sits in the tradeable Juyo and Tokubetsu-Hozon tiers; even so such blades are held more than traded, and a fully documented example, robust in build and carrying Nagahisa's inscription, comes to market only from time to time and stands among the more sought pieces of the Kanbun-shinto Edo when it does.
Moritsugu (守次) — Mainline · 1673-1684. Jūyō. Moritsugu of Fukuoka in Chikuzen was the son of the smith Ishido Rihei, and when his father died he went to study under his cousin Koretsugu; when Koretsugu's heir Toshitsugu predeceased his father, Moritsugu is said to have succeeded to the headship of the main line. He signed himself first Gonsabe and later Hansabe, and died in Genroku 14 (1701), aged sixty-nine. The published sources name him, with Koretsugu, the representative smith of the Fukuoka Ishido, the Chikuzen branch of the wider Ishido enterprise that set out in the new-sword era to recover the clove-flower temper of the old Bizen Fukuoka Ichimonji. They rank his school beside the Chikuzen branch of the Nobukuni line as one of the two pillars of the province's new-sword work, and on his fullest blade they write that Moritsugu's strengths are *amasu tokoro naku happatsu sareta*, displayed without reserve.
His recognized hand is a single manner, held with unusual consistency across the signed *katana* by which he is known. The temper is a *choji-midare* mixed with *gunome*, taken broad in *yakihaba*, and its governing peculiarity is that the pattern overall leans the wrong way, a *saka-gakari* slant that runs counter to the upright cloves of the Kamakura Ichimonji he otherwise looks back to. The published sources trace this reverse cant, and the *masame* nuance that goes with it in the *jigane*, to Koretsugu's training under Sakon Korekazu of the Edo Ishido, writing that *kitae ni masame-gokoro ga ari*, the forging carries a *masame* flavor[[c:1]]. Within the *midare* enter *ashi* and *yo*, the *nioiguchi* *nioi*-dominant with *ko-nie* along it, and *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* pass through. The single feature the published sources mark as Moritsugu's own is an edge in which the crest of a clove climbs so far that it reaches the *shinogi*, a broad swelling form they record as popularly called the *ika no atama*, the squid head; on one early blade the same idea is put as cloves like a squid's bag[[c:2]].
The *jigane* beneath this temper is an *itame* that flows strongly and, in its lower half especially, draws over toward *masame*, so that the steel reads as a coursing grain rather than a still one. Fine *ji-nie* settles across it and, on the closely worked pieces, *chikei* thread through where the grain opens. Standing in that *jigane* is the trait by which the whole school is known and by which it justified its archaism: a *midare-utsuri*, a cloudy reflected shadow of the temper, deliberately raised at a date when reflection had otherwise vanished from new-sword steel. It is the visible proof of the revival, the Fukuoka Ichimonji *utsuri* fetched back two and a half centuries; on his broadest blade the reflection even divides by face, a *midare-utsuri* on one side and a straighter, *sugu*-toned reflection on the other. The *boshi* answers quietly, turning in a *ko-maru* often brushed with *hakikake*, sometimes entering as a small *midare* before it rounds, now and again pointing or taking a short *jizo*-like turn.
The consistency of the hand means his manner is better read in two grades than as a sequence of periods. The ordinary grade is the typical Fukuoka Ishido *katana*: a *shinogi-zukuri* blade, *ubu*, with a *chu-kissaki* and, against the stiff shallow curve of its Kanbun-era contemporaries, a comparatively deep *sori*, which the published sources offer as itself a mark of the group's shape. The fuller grade widens everything. The *yakihaba* opens until the squid-head crests climb to the *shinogi*; within the *choji-midare* gather *gunome*, *ko-gunome*, angular and pointed elements; *tobiyaki* are set here and there and the back is freely tempered in *muneyaki*, and the whole turns brilliant. His finest recorded blade, broad in *mihaba* and thick in *kasane*, belongs to this grade, and it is of it that the published record speaks of his strengths displayed without reserve. A second line runs through the signatures themselves: the long inscriptions are cut in large characters with a thick chisel in a hand the published sources single out as *kai, gyo, reisho majiri*[[c:3]], blending the formal, running and clerical scripts, and several blades carry the added declaration that they were forged *i nanban-tetsu*, with imported steel, two of them dated to Tenna 4 (1684).
What sets Moritsugu apart is best drawn from his own steel rather than by contrast. The Fukuoka Ichimonji of Kamakura tempered its cloves upright over a quiet *itame*; Moritsugu keeps the clove and the revived *utsuri* but lays them over a coursing, *masame*-leaning *jigane* and cants the whole pattern in reverse, so that an upright old-Bizen brilliance is recast in a flowing new-sword grammar. That recasting is the Edo Ishido inheritance carried home to Chikuzen through Koretsugu, and the squid-head crest is the local accent added on top. The published sources value him at the head of the school for exactly this: a maker who could specialize in the clove temper, raise the school's reflection, and still stamp the result with a form of his own. They write of his earliest designated blade that he *was skilled in the choji temper*[[c:4]] and *showed a reflective tendency*, and judge it a quintessential and representative example[[c:5]]; of his broadest, that in it Moritsugu's true province is displayed without reserve, the squid-head edge, the deep *boshi* and the wide reflective *jigane* all in full relief.
Moritsugu's record stands entirely at the Juyo Token level, ten blades across a long span of shinsa sessions reaching from the 1960s to 2001, all signed and all *katana*, with no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties among them and no recorded provenance attaching to any. Fujishiro grades him Jo saku, a solid step into the upper ranks rather than the summit, and that is the honest measure of him: a representative master of a respected provincial school, not one of the great names whose blades pass between famous houses. One of the ten is a rarity, a collaboration signed jointly by Moritsugu and his son Morimasa with the supplementary line *kirimono dosaku*, the carving by the same hand; the published sources note that, since works of the Chikuzen smith Nobukuni Yoshimasa survive bearing carvings by Moritsugu, he was adept at *horimono* as well. For a collector the school is reachable in a way the Kamakura Ichimonji it imitates is not. His signed blades come to dealers from time to time, more often than those of the first rank, and they are marked by the broad reverse-canted cloves, the raised *utsuri* and the bold multi-script signature, so that a sound example is a realistic, if patient, acquisition rather than a thing one may only read about.
Other smiths
Ippo (一峯) — Mainline · 1648-1652. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Ippo (一峯) — Mainline · 1688-1704. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Koretsugu (是次) — Mainline · 1628-1681. Koretsugu was born in Kan'ei 5 (1628) and died in the third month of Tenna 1 (1681) at the age of fifty-three, a domain smith to the Kuroda house of Chikuzen who in Meireki 1 (1655) went up to Edo by his lord's order, studied the Bizen tradition under Musashi Daijo Sakon Korekazu of the Ishido line, and after three years returned to Fukuoka. With his cousin Moritsugu he is named by the published sources as a leading master of the Fukuoka Ishido, the line they set alongside the Chikuzen Nobukuni school as one of the two pillars of Chikuzen *shinto*. He worked under the common names Hansanbyoe and Ippei, and because his heir Toshitsugu died before him, Moritsugu succeeded to the main line. His is a revival hand: the brilliant *choji* of the Kamakura Fukuoka Ichimonji, recovered two and a half centuries later in *shinto* steel, and the published sources call him most skilled at exactly that, a smith who "excelled above all in *choji-ba* in the manner of the Ichimonji school, and was extremely skillful"[[c:1]].
His characteristic temper is a broadly hardened *choji-midare* set high over the *shinogi* in places, mixing *gunome*, *ko-gunome* and pointed elements within the clove heads, with *ashi* and *yo* entering well to produce a florid, varied *midare*. The temper is *nioi*-dominant with *ko-nie* gathered along it, fine *sunagashi* run through, and the *nioiguchi* is bright and clear. On the finest work of the two cousins the heads tighten and lean, the *choji* taking on a *saka* or reverse-slanting tendency that the published sources name the group's particular feature, forming the distinctive pouch-shaped *fukuro-choji*, the "unique pouch-shaped *fukuro-choji* in which their special character lies"[[c:2]]. A second recurring tell sits within the *ha*: a distinctive edge form the judges call *ika no atama* (烏賊の頭), a "squid head" that appears precisely where the hardening reaches broadest toward the *shinogi*, and which they read as a salient mark of the same workshop and lineage.
The *jigane* is where the revival is told apart from its Kamakura model. He forges a packed *itame* or *ko-itame* that flows strongly in the lower half and tends almost to *masame*, carrying fine *ji-nie* like minute particles, delicate *chikei*, and a standing *utsuri* that is sometimes a straight, *sugu*-like reflection and sometimes a *midare-utsuri*. This *masame*-tinged steel is the trait he took directly from Korekazu, and the published sources make it the first point by which his work is separated from true old Bizen, together with the tightened *nioiguchi* with *ko-nie* and the *sunagashi*, while noting that on his blades "the appearance of *utsuri* is slight"[[c:3]]. The *boshi* answers the *ha*: deeply tempered, entering in a *midare-komi* to a small round, the tip finishing in *hakikake*. The shape is the Kanbun *shinto* bearing, *shinogi-zukuri* with *mitsu-mune*, a rather wide *mihaba* with clear taper, a thick *kasane* and usually a shallow *sori*.
His surviving record reads as one revival manner held across a spread rather than as separate periods, and the judges draw the variation themselves. Several of his dated blades are noted as departing from the school formula: although Fukuoka Ishido generally shows the *saka* inclination in its *choji*, on these pieces that tendency is not conspicuous, and they differ somewhat in character. On just such a blade the school is confirmed not by the reverse *choji* but by the *masame*-tinged *jigane* with standing *utsuri*, the broad *yakihaba* reaching toward the *shinogi*, the deep *boshi* and the *ika no atama*, the points the sources call the salient features of the same hand. The work is uniformly signed, all seven recognized blades carrying a long signature cut with a thick chisel in a distinctive hand on the *omote*; several add a date and one a *kinzogan* date of Kanbun 11, so that a smith of the *shinto* age is read off his own inscriptions rather than off attribution. The largest is a votive *katana* of Kanbun 6, exceptionally wide and long with deep *sori*, which the judges hold a typical work showing no lack of control despite its scale.
Within the line his place is set by contrast with his cousin rather than by any borrowed comparison. Where Moritsugu, working in the same Kanbun *shinto* period, often kept the deeper *sori*, Koretsugu by contrast more often made the shallow Kanbun construction, the difference the published sources single out for attention, observing that he "frequently made constructions with the shallow *sori* typical of Kanbun-shinto"[[c:4]]. His teacher Korekazu, the Musashi Daijo of the Edo Ishido, gave him the *masame*-tinged *jigane* and the *saka*-leaning *choji* that distinguish the whole revival from the Kamakura Ichimonji it looks back to. Against true old Bizen his work is told by the fine *masame*, the tightened *nioiguchi* with *ko-nie* and the *sunagashi*; against the showier Osaka Ishido it keeps the Chikuzen *jigane* and the deep-tempered *boshi*. The published sources affirm his finest as a representative work of the school and "a masterpiece among his works"[[c:5]], naming one "a typical work of Chikuzen Ishido"[[c:6]].
For the collector Koretsugu is a Juyo-rank *shinto* name rather than a designated-treasure one. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs entirely through the Juyo Token rank, seven signed blades passing the shinsa across sessions from the thirteenth to the fiftieth. Provenance is thin in the surviving record, and no museum or daimyo house can be grounded on his blades, though one Kanbun 9 *katana* was made on commission for a member of the Kozai clan of Sanuki, retainers of the Hosokawa since the Nanbokucho period, and survives with a black *kawari-nuri* *uchigatana* *koshirae* whose fittings are given to Yanagawa Naoaki. With every recorded example signed and most long held, a Koretsugu reaches the market only from time to time, and chiefly his shallow-*sori* Kanbun pieces rather than the grand votive blades. When one does appear it is a self-documenting *shinto* Ichimonji revival in good order, the kind the judges call a blade "in which Koretsugu's true strengths are fully exhibited"[[c:7]], and a clear window onto how the Fukuoka *choji* was forged again in the Kanbun age.
Masatoshi (正俊) — Mainline. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Tsunemitsu (常光) — Mainline · 1648-1661. A katana on this record signed Tsushima Nyudo Tachibana Tsunemitsu and dated Genroku 11 (1698) gives the smith's age as seventy-three, and from that one inscription his long working life can be reckoned back to a birth around Kan'ei 3. Tsunemitsu was surnamed Hioki, used the common name Ichinojo and later styled himself Saburozaemon, and was born in Gamo District of Omi Province. He belonged to the Ishido line, the early-Edo school that set out to revive the clove-flower chOji of old Ichimonji and Ko-Bizen, complete with the utsuri the medieval Bizen masters had carried in their steel. With Dewa no Kami Mitsuhira and Echizen no Kami Munehiro he went up from Omi to Kyoto and afterward down to Edo, where these makers became known as the Edo Ishido. He took the Tachibana name where Mitsuhira used Minamoto, and the published sources name him, with Mitsuhira, a representative smith of the Edo Ishido group[[c:1]].
His hand is a single flamboyant manner held at full power across every blade on record. Over a tightly forged itame, often a well-packed ko-itame mixing mokume and a little nagare-hada, he tempers a chOji-midare crowded with double-flower jUka-chOji, large and small chOji, round-headed chOji, gunome and small gunome, with pointed elements set among them, so the temper line shows pronounced height as it crests and falls. Ashi and yO enter in profusion and the work turns showy, nioi-dominant with attached ko-nie, fine sunagashi running through and kinsuji appearing here and there. The published sources call one such katana a work in which his true strengths are fully realized[[c:2]] and another, of large-pattern jUka-chOji with ashi and yO entering thickly, the piece that should be regarded as his finest[[c:3]]. The dense, height-varied clove temper, not the bare clove root that every Bizen-descended smith shares, is what makes his chOji his own.
The jigane beneath is the surer half of the recognition. It is a well-forged itame, on his calmer pieces a ko-itame that packs down finely, carrying ji-nie that gathers in minute particles, and across it stands a midare-utsuri. Utsuri on a new-sword blade is rare and deliberate, and its recovery was the Ishido school's whole purpose, so a flamboyant chOji standing over a clear irregular reflection is the first thing that separates an Ishido katana from any other Shinto chOji. The published sources describe the reflection in his most vivid pieces as standing brilliantly[[c:4]], the clove temper bright above it. The boshi enters midare-komi and turns back in ko-maru, at times running straight on the omote with a constriction at the point, occasionally with a little hakikake; the sugata is the broad mid-Edo katana, wide in mihaba with a noticeable taper, thick in kasane, the chu-kissaki sometimes compact and sometimes tending to extend.
The published sources draw him not as a sequence of style periods but as one accomplished manner, and the only axis they trace is read off the nakago. The nakago is ubu, the signature cut centrally below the mekugi-ana in a large, thickly chiseled six-character mei, with a long full signature and date on the most completely inscribed pieces. Some of the works carry the title Tsushima no Jo and others Tsushima no Kami, and a minority view has held the Tsushima no Jo blades to be a separate second generation. The judges rather find that in the overall tone of the inscription and the manner of chisel work the Tsushima no Jo signatures share much with the Tsushima no Kami ones, and prefer to read the former as works made before he received the higher Tsushima no Kami rank, one such katana viewed as a piece made prior to that promotion[[c:5]], the matter left open for new evidence. The signature thus carries the only temporal information in an oeuvre whose hand does not otherwise change, and a related question hangs over his very kinship: he was long held to be Mitsuhira's elder brother, but extant dated signatures, calculated backward, show Mitsuhira the elder by six years, and the difference of Tachibana against Minamoto has brought even the brother theory into doubt.
Within the Edo Ishido group Tsunemitsu and Mitsuhira are the two by whom the branch is known, and what sets Tsunemitsu apart is grounded in his own steel rather than in any borrowed comparison. His bright, height-varied chOji-midare with jUka-chOji and his standing midare-utsuri are the features the judges return to, and the recurring verdict is that his work recalls the old Ichimonji of classical times, described on the JUyO katana of the fiftieth and thirty-fourth sessions as bringing old Ichimonji to mind[[c:6]] and on the twenty-second session piece as calling it vividly to memory[[c:7]]. That recovered Bizen idiom, tempered in new-sword steel and carried on an utsuri the medieval smiths would have recognized, is the manner the Edo branch is remembered for, and one katana is singled out simply as a typical work that clearly displays his distinctive characteristics[[c:8]]. Where the Tsushima no Jo and Tsushima no Kami generation debate, if ever resolved toward two hands, would extend his line, the published sources keep it as one hand whose signature alone moved with his rank.
For the collector Tsunemitsu is a first-rank name of the Edo Ishido, and Fujishiro grades him Jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on this account runs entirely through the JUyO tier, where seven of his works are held, every one of them an ubu, signed katana or wakizashi cut with the large six-character mei, several carrying dates across the Kanbun, Enpo and Genroku years that make the chronology of his long career legible. None of the seven carries a recorded former owner, so no daimyo provenance or holding institution can honestly be named for them; what can be said is that they are designated works held in public and long-private collections, more often kept than traded. A signed Tsunemitsu of his flamboyant chOji manner is among the more attainable of the Ishido swords precisely because so much of his record sits in the tradeable JUyO tier rather than locked as national heritage, yet a fine one reaches the market only from time to time and with patience, and a dated katana showing the bright jUka-chOji over a standing utsuri remains a substantial acquisition, a document of how the Edo Ishido brought the old Ichimonji clove back to life in a Shinto blade.
Yasuhiro (安廣) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Bicchu no Kami Tachibana Yasuhiro, whose personal name was Tomita Gorozaemon, is named by the published sources as a representative master of the Kishu Ishido group and the founder of the Osaka Ishido line, active around the Kanbun era of the early Edo period. The Ishido smiths were the Shinto generation that set out to revive the Bizen manner of the old Ichimonji, and Yasuhiro carried that revival as a house specialty: the published commentary describes his style as a Bizen tradition that may be called his hereditary art, a forging over which utsuri rises and on which choji-midare is the temper he particularly excelled in[[c:1]]. His name itself records the revival as historical project rather than imitation, for the school sought to recover the bright, utsuri-bearing Bizen steel that most Shinto smiths of his century could no longer produce. He worked first in Kishu under the Kii daimyo and later moved to Osaka, where his manner became the seed of a second Ishido line, so that his blades stand at the head of two branches of the same Bizen revival.
The feature that marks his work first is the choji-midare in the revived Bizen manner, set over a forging in which midare-utsuri stands clearly. On the pre-title wakizashi the tightly forged ko-itame carries dust-fine ji-nie and a midare-utsuri, and over it he takes the yakihaba markedly wide and tempers a choji-midare that mixes juka-choji, ko-choji, gunome and ko-gunome, with ashi and yo entering abundantly to produce a florid effect, the whole turned nioi-gachi. The published sources name the school's two Bizen models directly, calling Yasuhiro and the Ishido group masters of the Ichimonji-copy choji-midare and the Sue-Bizen-copy gunome with an opened lower contour, both worked in nioi-deki[[c:2]]. Running through his temper is an overall saka-gokoro, a reverse slant in the choji and the ashi that the commentary treats as one of his own tells, most marked in his early pieces.
The jigane on which this temper sits is a ko-itame, well packed, on the titled katana mixed with a flowing tendency and at times a masame-leaning grain along the ha, with fine ji-nie and a faint midare-utsuri rising over it. The utsuri is the conspicuous mark of the Ishido revival, the bright Bizen reflection that the published sources take for the foundation of his work and that separates him at sight from the great run of Shinto smiths. The boshi runs straight to a ko-maru with slight hakikake and a long or deep return, and on the early wakizashi he carves a koshi-bi on the omote against gomabashi on the ura, both finished in maru-dome. The result on his best work is a high, bright nioiguchi with a tightening tendency, the hamon broad and full of incident rather than reduced to small repeating patterns.
His hand divides cleanly by the moment in his career, read off the signature. Before he received his court title he signed such forms as Oite Kishu Yasuhiro and Kii no Kuni Yasuhiro, at times prefixing Toichi as in Kii no Kuni Toichi Yasuhiro; after receiving the title Bicchu no Kami he cut a long six- or seven-character signature, sometimes dividing the inscription across the two faces, and carved a chrysanthemum crest on the reverse, the mark of his titled work. The published commentary reads the wide, florid pre-title wakizashi as a youthful, vigorous piece, where the strength of the yakiba is felt more than usual and the blade is filled with spirit[[c:3]], and notes that no other wakizashi of such stout and magnificent build had been encountered[[c:4]]. Apart from his choji-midare house style stands a kawari-deki centered on large gunome with deep nioi and well-adhering nie; the commentary ties this departure to his earlier name, written Yasuhiro with a different character, recording that in that period he left collaborations with Yamato no Kami Yasusada[[c:5]], so that features reminiscent of Yasusada can be recognized in the boshi, and judging that such a work is therefore not unnatural for him[[c:6]].
What sets him apart within the Shinto field is drawn from his own grounded traits rather than from the comparand. His bright midare-utsuri and his choji-midare in the recovered Bizen manner are features most of his Shinto contemporaries could not make, and his recurrent saka-gokoro and the chrysanthemum crest of his titled period mark his blades as his. The published sources judge his titled katana the full, unreserved display of Bicchu no Kami Yasuhiro's strengths and an outstanding work among his production[[c:7]], noting greater height variation in the edge than in his customary pieces. He stands at the junction of two Ishido branches, the representative of the Kishu group and the founder of the Osaka line, and into both he carried the same midare-utsuri jigane and the same Bizen-revival choji.
Yasuhiro's signed katana and wakizashi survive in modest numbers, three of them on record at the Juyo level and all of them signed, with no work raised to National Treasure or Important Cultural Property rank, so that none is permanently held out of private hands. His designation factor and his standing in the reference gradings place him among the upper Ishido hands rather than the very first names of the Shinto period, which is the honest measure of a fine school smith rather than a national master. Provenance is recorded for one of his blades: the broad, robust pre-title wakizashi the published sources call beyond anything they had seen was transmitted in the Shimazu house of Satsuma during the domain era. A signed Yasuhiro sits almost wholly within the Juyo tier, held more often than traded, and a securely signed example, dividing between his florid pre-title manner and the chrysanthemum-marked work of his titled years, comes to the serious collector only from time to time, a representative piece of the Ishido Bizen revival when it does.
Yasunaga (康永) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Nagatsugu (長次) — Mainline · 1681-1684. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Norihiro (則廣) — Mainline · 1684-1688. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Norihiro (則廣) — Mainline · 1684-1688. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Tamehiro (爲廣) — Mainline · 1688-1704. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Tsunahiro (綱廣) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Yasutsuna (康綱) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Korekazu (是一) — Mainline · 1648-1652. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Korekazu (是一) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Nagayuki (長幸) — Mainline · 1661-1686. Tatara Nagayuki is said to have been originally from Kishu. He styled himself Shirobei and became a disciple of Kawachi no Kami Yasunaga, who had moved from Kishu to Osaka. He is consistently described as a craftsman whose technique surpassed even that of his teacher. Dated works are exceedingly rare, but a small number bearing dates from the Tenna and Jokyo eras allow us to infer, broadly, that he was active in the late seventeenth century. He is regarded as the foremost *Bizen-den* smith among the *shinto* makers, having thoroughly studied the Bizen tradition.
His manner of work divides into two distinct types. One is a flamboyant style in which large *choji* are mixed with *ko-choji* and pointed elements, with abundant *ashi* and *yo* -- a deliberate aim at Ichimonji in what may be called the Ishido lineage's traditional specialty. The *nioiguchi* in this mode tends toward tightness and brightness. The other type takes as its principal theme *gunome* with an opened "waist," mixed with compound-style (*fukushiki*) elements, and appears to model the manner of Sue-Bizen, particularly the work of Yosazaemon no Jo Sukesada. The *jihada* across both modes shows *itame* mixed with *mokume*, tending toward standing grain, with fine *ji-nie* and distinctly standing *midare-utsuri*. The *boshi* characteristically enters in *midare-komi*, becomes pointed at the tip, and turns back deeply -- a habitual trait consistently seen throughout his work.
Nagayuki's blades frequently display notably wide *mihaba* with ample *nikuoki*, producing grand and powerful forms that possess great impact. The occasional supplementary inscription "forged using Chigusa iron" offers a glimpse into iron distribution in the period and marks works of special commission. A matched *daisho* by this smith is extremely rare, and the cursive-script signature appearing on one example is without parallel among his known works, rendering such pieces exceptionally valuable as documentary material.
Ippo (一法) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Kazunori (一則) — Mainline · 1865-1868. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Masakatsu (正勝) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Muneharu (宗春) — Mainline · 1655-1658. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Nagatsugu (長次) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Nagayoshi (永吉) — Mainline · 1688-1704. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Naosada (直定) — Mainline · 1781-1789. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Naosada (直貞) — Mainline · 1688-1704. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Norisada (則定) — Mainline · 1912-1926. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Noriyoshi (則義) — Mainline · 1684-1688. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Sukeharu (祐春) — Mainline · 1661-1690. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Tomokiyo (知清) — Mainline · 1596-1781. Smith of the Ishidō School.
Yasusada (安定) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Smith of the Ishidō School.