Iron with the strength of armor and the geometry of a crest. The Owari tsuba makers — Nobuie the towering name among them — forged ji-sukashi openwork guards of bold, symmetrical design and famously powerful iron, the warrior counterpart to Kyoto’s delicate sukashi. From the Sengoku years through the early Edo period, an Owari guard was what a fighting sword wore.
Era
1500 — 1700
Members
17
Kokuhō
0
Jūbun
0
Jūbi
0
Tokujū
5
Jūyō
73
For Sale
19
17smiths0Kokuhō0Jūbun0Jūbi5Tokujū73Jūyō
Branch法安Hoan4 smiths
Branch山吉Yamakichi2 smiths
The Owari Tsuba School (尾張) Lineage
The The Owari Tsuba School (尾張), active 1500–1700 in Owari Province across 17 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 0 Jūbi, 5 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 73 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Owari Tsuba School (尾張) · 1500 – 1700
Nobuie (信家) — Mainline. Tokujū, Jūyō. Nobuie of Owari is named in the published sources, together with Kaneie of Fushimi in Kyoto, as one of the twin pinnacles of the iron tsuba, and his designated record of fifty-six guards is built almost wholly on forged iron. The commentary places his production chiefly in the Sengoku period, from the end of Muromachi into Momoyama. Who he was is less certain than what he made. The common account makes him the seventeenth generation of the Myochin armourers, who took the character Nobu from Takeda Shingen, and another tradition has him leave Owari for Kai at Shingen's invitation; the published sources report both as tradition and call the move unproven. They also state that the name was not one man's. Several smiths signed Nobuie at nearly the same time at the end of Muromachi, others did so in the Edo period, and they probably lived in several provinces beginning with Owari. Armourer's helmets signed Nobuie, some dated in the Tenbun era, survive, but neither their signatures nor their kao match those on the tsuba, and forgeries made since the Edo period have further clouded the study. One guard in the record is described as the work of the first-generation Owari tsuba maker, signed in the so-called left-leaning hand.
His merit is stated in a sentence the published sources repeat, in close variants, in forty-five of the sixty records: the forging of the iron is without equal, the surface pattern of the plate (jimon) is rich in scenery and elegance, and the guard shows to best advantage on an uchigatana mounting. Set against Kaneie, whom they credit with founding the pictorial tsuba on thin plates, Nobuie's guards are thick and carry a sense of mass. The plate is most often a hammered tsuchime-ji, its hammer marks described as alive and moving, and the working of the iron throws up iron bones (tekkotsu) at the rim and across the flat. The patina is deep and heavy, at times purple with a reddish cast, and one record calls this beautiful rust "the very life of the Nobuie tsuba." Of a plain guard with water-drop openwork the commentary writes that "few tsuba make known how strong and beautiful iron can be." Of a tortoise-shell guard with Amida file marks, the piece the late Akiyama Kyusaku treasured above all his others, it speaks of "the skill of no skill."
His shapes are mostly mokko and round, rarely the kemari form or the aori form whose lower edge flares, and the published sources note that plate guards far outnumber openwork. The modelling is low at the centre and high toward the rim, and the rim is hammered tight and turned back as an uchikaeshi-mimi, often with a small raised edge. One record calls this lively turned-back rim "what is called the true essence of Nobuie," and another finds the curve running from rim to nakago-ana peculiar to him, the sign of a maker who attended to the whole three-dimensional form and not only to the iron. On this plate he cuts kebori, the hairline engraving he favoured: gourds, morning glory and arrowhead, tortoise-shell and broken tortoise-shell, pine needles and seaweed, arabesque of paulownia and ivy, plum, maple and the horned owl in a tree. Chrysanthemum stamps scattered across the surface, which the commentary associates with the hanare signature, add to the pattern of the plate. Sukidashi relief and small openwork appear more rarely, and a guard of cherry blossom and water wheel inlaid in brass is called "an extremely rare technique among Nobuie tsuba."
The inscribed guard forms a second register, which the published sources name a major point of interest in his work: the divine name Hachiman Daibosatsu, the daimoku Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, and verses on the secrets of the sword and the thought of the age, all cut in kebori. One guard sets the daimoku on the front and the five-element characters on the back; another carries the proverb of the old man of the frontier and his horse[[c:1]]; a third shows three skulls in relief on the front and a seven-character daimoku on the back. Of the Tokubetsu Juyo guard bearing the Yumiya Hachiman verse, the commentary writes that "the composure of the warrior who lived through the Warring States comes through, quiet and grave." His signature is almost always the two characters Nobuie. Many character forms are accepted, but they divide broadly into the hanare-mei and the futoji-mei; Akiyama Kyusaku sorted them into seven types, among them a tsumari-mei, after Nakamura Kakudayu had compiled his Nobuie Tsuba-shu at the end of the Edo period. Only one guard in the record carries a kao beside the name.
The wheel openwork (kuruma-sukashi) places him among his Owari contemporaries, for the published sources find the same design in the work of Hoan, Yamayoshi and Kanayama. His own examples, with fourteen or sixteen spokes, stand apart for their heavy outer ring and the uneven run of the spokes, and the fourteen-spoke Tokubetsu Juyo guard is called among the finest of his works. The commentary also records why warriors favoured him: a Nobuie guard suited a mounting of any taste and was valued for that harmony and for its strength. The repeated judgment is that these are the works in which "the appeal of the iron tsuba from the end of Muromachi through Momoyama can be savoured to the full."
For the collector, Nobuie's record is fifty-six guards designated Juyo Tosogu, four of them raised to Tokubetsu Juyo; he has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. Provenance is recorded for only a few: a daimoku guard handed down in the ducal Date family, the tortoise-shell guard from the collection of Akiyama Kyusaku, and the fourteen-spoke wheel guard, which Nakamura's book records passing from Hamada Motohichi of Osaka to Tsunaya and which was kept in the Furukawa family. No current holder is recorded against his name. Among tsuba makers his designated guards are relatively numerous, and one may come forward from time to time; a signed plate of fine hammered iron with a lively turned-back rim, in either signature class, shows the side of his art the published sources praise most.
Nobuie (信家) — Mainline · 1588. Tokujū, Jūyō. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Yamakichibei (山吉兵衛) — Mainline. Jūyō. A wheel guard of *o-tafuku mokkō* form, cut with the full surname signature Yamasaka Kichibei (山坂吉兵), is called by the published sources outstanding among his works[[c:1]], and it sets out the whole of his art: a hammered iron plate, the hard knots of *tekkotsu* standing in it, pierced with a single bold device. Yamakichibei is named with Hōan as one of the two makers who represent the Owari iron *tsuba*, flourishing in the same age as Nobuie and Kanayama from the end of the Muromachi period into the Momoyama, and he is said to have begun as an armourer to the Oda house. The name was carried for several generations. The published sources hold that the signature cut in full as Yamasaka Kichibei, without abbreviating the surname, is the oldest in manner, a man of about the Genki era, and that the line ran on until the Sakura-Yamakichi of the Kanbun to Genroku years. One guard so signed is called the so-called Dai-shodai, a fine piece[[c:2]].
His signatures read Yamasaka Kichibei, Yamasaka Kichibe, Yama Kichibei and Yama Kichibe, and once Kanayama Kichibei. The published sources explain the final *he* as an abbreviation of *e*, the last syllable of Kichibei. The plate beneath them is consistent. It is a well-forged iron finished with the hammer (*tsuchime-ji*) and the fire (*yakite*), and the annealing raises the *tekkotsu* here and there, at times as grains, at times as lumps, across both the plate and the rim. The sources say this gives the iron both a refined taste and a sense of strength, and on one hatchet guard they write that the granular and lumpy iron bones run in every direction, so that the surface is exceedingly varied. On a chrysanthemum guard the rust carries a reddish tone, and the scenery of the hammered and fire-finished iron is called freely changing.
The devices are few, plain and boldly cut. The wheel appears on three of his designated guards, and the sources note that the wheel guard can be traced to the Nanbokuchō period, on the sword raised by the mounted warrior of the portrait said to show Ashikaga Takauji, and that it may carry a Buddhist meaning. The geese and the rice sickle appear on two, pierced large to left and right as a seasonal image, one of them named among the masterpieces of the first-generation Yamakichibei[[c:3]]. Beside these stand an oar crossed with a scull in shadow openwork, a hatchet cut boldly at staggered heights, and a chrysanthemum, once as the shape of the whole guard carved down in *sukidashi* and once as openwork on a filed plate. Two guards carry a radiating Amida filing (*amida-yasuri*), one with a small hedge openwork, and of the oar-and-scull guard the sources write that it shows the true ability of Yamakichibei[[c:4]].
The rim and the fittings of the plate are part of the reading. On two guards the rim is turned back in a strong *uchikaeshi*, which tightens the shape, and on one the iron bones appear along the turned-back rim itself. On the Dai-shodai wheel guard the unused *hitsu-ana* are filled with lead set a touch below the plate, the filling the sources call Owari-ume and treasure. Of a wheel guard signed Yamasaka Kichibe the sources write that the crisp lines of its openwork give a strong sense of a guard born in the hard age of the Warring States[[c:5]].
The published sources read him beside Hōan more than beside Nobuie. They say repeatedly that Yamakichi shares a manner with Hōan, that his shape is imposing, and that his guards look all the finer when mounted on the *uchigatana* koshirae fashionable in his day[[c:6]]. One entry also notes a manner in common with Nobuie, his contemporary. His own marks are those the sources name: the hammered and fire-finished plate with its raised iron bones, the bold device pierced through it, and the strong turned-back rim. One of his guards survives on such a mount, an *uchigatana* koshirae of the late Muromachi with a vermilion lacquered scabbard and a black leather wrapped hilt; the guard was fitted later, but the sources call the survival of such a mounting extremely rare[[c:7]].
Ten works of his are designated at the Jūyō level, nine guards and the one koshirae that carries a guard of his, and none is designated higher. No daimyō provenance is recorded for them, and their holders at designation were private collectors in Japan and, for the hatchet guard, in Germany. An Owari iron guard of the first generation, signed and carrying its iron bones, comes to market only from time to time, and the Yamasaka Kichibei signature of the earliest hand is the rarest form among them.
Hoan (法安) — Mainline. Jūyō. Hōan (法安) signed his iron tsuba with the two characters of his name alone, and the published sources give him a full biography. He was an armour and weapon smith (*bugu-kaji*) of Kiyosu in Owari, whose personal name was Kawaguchi Saburōemon. Retained as a craftsman by the Asano family, he lived first at Fuchū in Kai and then at Wakayama in Kii, and he died on the twentieth day of the fifth month of Keichō 18 (1613), with the posthumous name Honpōin Sōan Nisshin Koji. His son-in-law Hisatsugu and others moved to Hiroshima in Aki with the Asano transfer in the Genna years, and the family graves are therefore at Kokuzen-ji in Hiroshima. The five designated guards under his name date from the end of the Muromachi period into the Momoyama age.
The published sources place him with Yamakichi and Nobuie among the Owari tsuba makers who left signed work and whose manners have much in common. Of the three they write that his work is somewhat more technical than Nobuie's and a step more polished than Yamakichi's[[c:1]]. Wheel openwork (*kuruma-sukashi*) is often seen in both Hōan and Yamakichi, and in both the iron bones (*tekkotsu*) are revealed with a bold, vigorous effect[[c:2]]. The commentary adds that his name stands high because of his fine wheel-openwork guards.
His art begins in the plate itself. His iron is so famed for its toughness that it carries the nickname *uwabami-tetsu*, giant-serpent iron (「うわばみ鉄」と異称されるほど手強さに定評がある). On the designated guards it is described as viscous and dense, with the forging texture coming up here and there with a lively movement. A round wheel-openwork guard of twelve openings has a thick rim in the manner of a *dote-mimi* and shows the beauty and strength of well-forged iron, with tekkotsu appearing at many points. The published sources note that the openwork is cut by an unforced, straightforward carving method.
His particular technique is *yakite-kusarashi*, a fired and deliberately corroded finish that sets the design in a living texture. On a vertical-round guard the Six-Character Invocation is raised on one face and the Seven-Character Daimoku on the other, in what the published sources call the *kusarashi-te* manner, while the hammered surface and small openings deepen its elegance. On a wheel-openwork guard he uses the same method to show a long-eared rabbit at the rim, with a touch of gold inlay. Elsewhere it brings shifting effects across the flat of the plate.
*Amida-yasuri*, file marks radiating from the centre, is his other device. On one round guard the parts not pierced with the wheel are filed in Amida-yasuri. The published sources find the balance between the two delightful, call both composition and carving outstanding, and note the gloss and moist lustre particular to Hōan[[c:3]], together with a large, solid seppa-dai. A variant eight-lobed guard with the Daimoku is filed in Amida-yasuri overall, and its richly varied rim becomes a landscape in its own right. Of it they write that within one tsuba a world particular to Hōan is brought into being[[c:4]].
All five of his designated works are Juyo tsuba, signed with the bare name. The published record gives no provenance for them and names no institution that holds them. They were designated from private collections, and an example comes to market only occasionally. The published sources recite the same Kiyosu biography for every signed piece and do not divide the name into generations. A collector meets him in the wheel-openwork guards on which his reputation rests and in the corroded, Amida-filed plates that show his technique.
Yamakichibei (山吉兵衛) — Mainline · Momoyama. Jūyō. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Sadahiro (貞広) — Mainline. Jūyō. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Other smiths
Hisatsugu (久次) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Hiko’emon (彦右衛門) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Norisuke (則亮 (Norisuke/Koreyoshi) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Tomoyasu (友休) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Hoan (法安) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Jizaemon (次左衛門) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Kanenobu (兼信) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Katsuaki (克明) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Munehide/Soei (宗栄) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Shigemasa (重正) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.
Tomonori (友則) — Mainline. Smith of the Owari Tsuba School.