From Seki to the Inland Sea. The first Teruhiro was signing in Mino in 1589 before taking service with the Fukushima and then the Asano at Hiroshima; generations of the name followed, arming Aki province to the end of the Edo age. The early masters carry the designations — the long continuation was a domain forge doing its steady work.
The The Aki Teruhiro School (安芸輝広), active 1589–1868 in Aki Province across 2 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 1 Jūbi, 1 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 41 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Aki Teruhiro School (安芸輝広) · 1589 – 1868
Teruhiro (輝廣) — Mainline · 1589-1615. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. A katana dated Tenshō 17 (1589) and inscribed Nōshū Seki-jū Teruhiro is the document around which this smith's history was rewritten. Teruhiro is the founding name of an early-Shintō Hiroshima line, and the published sources read it as two closely matched hands set down together: the shodai, Higo no Kami Fujiwara Teruhiro, and his son-in-law the nidai, Harima no Kami Teruhiro. The shodai was a native of Mino, said to descend from Seki Kanetsune, who signed first as Kanetomo, then studied under Umetada Myōju of Kyōto, took service with Fukushima Masanori, changed his name and received the title Higo no Kami, and accompanied his lord from Kiyosu in Owari to Hiroshima in Geishū in Keichō 5 (1600). The traditional account made him a Myōju pupil first and an accomplished smith second. The Tenshō-dated katana overturned the order: the published commentary holds that it proves he was already signing Teruhiro and *meijin*-class while still in Mino, so that, in their words, he had already reached full stature 「明寿入門以前に既に大成していた」 before entering Myōju's circle, a finding that reopens the question of that teaching and is left to future research.
His recognized work is a broad katana, strong in *sakizori* and at its largest carrying an *ō-kissaki*. Over an *itame* that flows toward the edge into *masame* and stands somewhat in *hada-dachi*, the shodai tempers a vigorous *notare* that boxes up in places into large, *hako*-leaning patterns, mixing *gunome* and *gunome-chōji*, with *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* breaking out, *ashi* and *yō* within, a *nioiguchi* that runs tight or subdued with *mura-nie*, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* throughout. The *bōshi* tempers deep and enters *midare*, turning back in *ko-maru* with a deep return that joins the *muneyaki*. The published sources read this *notare* as an admiration for Shizu workmanship, and of the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana they call it 「放胆な作柄を示した初代輝広の傑出した一振」, a blade that, with its wide body and large point, 「迫力に満ち溢れている」.
The *jigane* is where the Mino origin shows most plainly. The shodai's *jigane* is an *itame* run through with *masame*, standing in *hada-dachi*, at times faintly whitish, the *ji-nie* gathered over a forging that is more vigorous than refined. The nidai's *jigane* is the more polished of the two: a tightly worked *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare*, the *ji-nie* laid in minute particles and densely, with *chikei* woven in frequently, a forging the published sources single out as bright and clear. Across both hands the temper is the constant. The principal manner is a *notare*, deep in *nioi*, with *gunome* set into it, *ashi* entering, *ko-nie* thick on the edge, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running, and *tobiyaki* breaking out here and there, the *nioiguchi* bright. A quieter *suguha* register recurs across both, drawn especially on *naginata*, *yari* and a few *katana*, in a *suguha-chō* that undulates shallowly with *ko-gunome*, *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba* along the *habuchi*.
The nidai, an Owari man of the Kanie family commonly called Jinpachi who first signed Kanehisa, became the shodai's son-in-law and is thought, like his teacher, to have had a connection with Myōju; his earliest dated work is of Keichō 15 (1610). His own manner keeps the deep-*nioi* *ko-notare* with *gunome*, the *gunome* standing a little more strongly than in the shodai. Beyond it he turns deliberately to older models, and the record of those copies is unusually explicit. One wide *kata-kiriba* *wakizashi* the published sources read as modeled on Sōshū Sadamune, the master 「彼が最も私淑した相州貞宗に範を」 taken from; a *kanmuri-otoshi* piece in *suguha*, carved with *naginata-hi*, they read as an evocation of old Yamato, particularly Taima; a broad *katana* whose wide, high *notare* with a hardened *koshi-ba* they say calls to mind Kanemoto and Muramasa; and a recent *tantō* they take as a copy after a high Sōshū hand. Through all of them the flowing *hada*, the angular *gunome* and pointed elements, and a Sanbon-sugi-like *bōshi* betray, in their reading, his Mino descent.
What sets the two hands apart from their Mino and Sōshū sources is exactly what the judges name in them. The shodai is read as the bolder, Shizu-touched hand, his *notare* spirited and large; the nidai as the more refined and various, deep in *nioi* and bright in the *ji*, and confident enough to range from Sadamune to Taima to Kanemoto. The published sources hold that the nidai equals or surpasses his teacher, recording that the second-generation Harima no Kami 「二代播磨守は初代に優るとも劣らぬものがある」, and of his finest blades they say his true strength is shown without reserve. The line did not end with him: after the Fukushima house was dispossessed it passed into the service of the Asano daimyō and prospered in Hiroshima for generations, many descendants likewise taking the title Harima no Kami.
For the collector Teruhiro is a scarce early-Shintō name graded Jō-jō saku by Fujishiro. The shodai's surviving production is repeatedly said to number fewer than twenty pieces in all, counting *katana*, *tantō*, *yari* and *naginata* together, and his work has no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; the designated record runs instead through one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, a body of some thirty-five Jūyō blades across both generations, and a prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin. Provenance is thin but real, the recorded names being the Fukushima and Asano daimyō houses the smiths served and the prewar collector Hayashida Shōkei. Of the dated *katana* the published sources say it is exceptional documentary material, and of the early Jūyō example, that it is 「同作中の優品の一である」; of the nidai's best, that 「覇気があって出来も優れている」. Most designated Teruhiro blades are held rather than traded, so an example reaching the market is uncommon and is a notable thing for a private collector to encounter, a record of how a Seki smith carried Mino and Sōshū into the swords of early-Edo Hiroshima.
Teruhiro (輝廣) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Jūyō. A naginata dated to the strengths of his hand, designated at the fortieth Jūyō session, is read by the published sources as the example in which the true strengths of the second-generation Teruhiro are fully manifested. The smith who made it, Harima no Kami Teruhiro, is the second generation of the Aki Teruhiro line, the Hiroshima house of Mino origin that worked under the patronage of the Fukushima and then the Asano daimyō in early Shintō times. He was a native of Owari of the Kanie family, commonly called Jinpachi, and signed at first as Kanehisa before he studied under the first-generation Higo no Kami Teruhiro, was favorably regarded by his teacher, and became his son-in-law. He served the Fukushima house, moved with it to Hiroshima in Geishū, and after that family was dispossessed entered the service of the Asano. His earliest dated work bears a Keichō 15 date of 1610, so that his active years stand close to the first generation's, and he is documented as a *Jō-jō saku* smith of the early Hiroshima school.
His characteristic hand is a *ko-notare* carried in a deep *nioiguchi*, mixed with *gunome* and blades of a pointed *togari-gokoro* tendency. The published sources name this his forte and, on his finest naginata, call the deep *nioi*, the evenly and thickly adhering *ko-nie*, and the *ji* and *ha* alike bright and clear the very essence of his work, 「正に同工の真骨頂である」. Within the temper *ashi* and *yō* enter, *kinsuji* run in the lower half, *sunagashi* streams through, and small *tobiyaki* appear here and there, the whole hardened in a *nioiguchi* that runs bright on his best work and settles toward a subdued *shizumi* on a quieter piece. It is the opposite pole from the showy Bizen clove temper, a controlled undulating line in which the activity is read rather than displayed.
The *jigane* beneath it is an *itame* that takes in a *masame*-leaning, flowing texture and stands somewhat in *hada-dachi*, an open grain rather than a tight one. On the best naginata the *ji-nie* gathers at the finest into dust-fine *ji-nie mijin* laid thickly, with fine *chikei* entering well and the steel clear, while on the wakizashi the same flowing *jigane* stands more plainly with *ji-nie* and *chikei*. The *bōshi* most often turns in a *ko-maru*; on the largest naginata it runs a shallow *notare* to a somewhat *ō-maru* tip on the *omote* and becomes *notare-komi* with a thrusting-up, pointed finish on the *ura*, and on the wakizashi it goes straight to a small round turn on one face and into *midare-komi* on the other.
Two manners recur across his small body of recorded work. The first is the deep-*nioi* naginata just described, the area in which his forte shows fullest. The second is a slightly elongated *sun-nobi* *hira-zukuri* *ko-wakizashi*, somewhat wide in the *mihaba* with a thick *kasane*, presenting the *sugata* of Keichō-era Shintō and deliberately aiming at the flavor of Shizu work, which the published sources call a success, 「志津の風をねらって成功している」, and indeed a typical work of this smith, 「勿論彼の典型作でもある」. On these the temper is a shallow, gently undulating line with small *gunome*, the *nioiguchi* tight, with a *hotsure*-like fraying and a slight *sunagashi*; they carry carvings more often than the naginata, a *bō-hi* or *katana-hi*, *bonji* and a lotus pedestal, *gomabashi* or a plain *suken*. The published sources read both manners as a close inheritance of his teacher's style and infer, as with the first generation, an association with the Kyoto master Umetada Myōju, drawn from the deep-*nioi* *notare* the two hands share and from the small difference in their working years.
Within the school he is set apart from his teacher by his title and by his descent showing through the steel. Where the first generation signs Higo no Kami, the second signs Harima no Kami, and the published sources read three marks as betraying his Mino lineage even where the temper looks to Shizu: the flowing *nagare-hada* in the forging, the pointed *togari-gokoro* blades within the *hamon*, and especially a *bōshi* reminiscent of the Mino Sanpin manner. On the finest naginata they name these explicitly and conclude that they allow one to perceive that he was a swordsmith of Mino lineage, 「彼が美濃系出身の刀工であることを察知させる」. His work is thus legible as Hiroshima Shintō with a Mino root rather than as pure Sōshū, the deep-*nioi* *notare* and the flowing, standing *ji* placing him beside his father and apart from the smiths he admired.
Six of his works are on record, all of them designated Jūyō, spanning *tantō*, *wakizashi* and *naginata*, and all signed; there is no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property among them, and his line is one whose pieces survive in small numbers rather than in quantity. The published sources note that while *tantō* signed Harima no Kami Teruhiro are by no means scarce, dated examples are exceedingly few, so that a *tantō* bearing a date carries high documentary value, and the pieces dated Kan'ei 5 of 1628 and Kan'ei 9 of 1632 are valued for exactly that reason. Recorded ownership is private rather than institutional, and no famous provenance attaches to the recorded blades. A designated Teruhiro of the second generation is not among the unattainable names, but it is a blade that comes to a collector only from time to time and with patience, the deep-*nioi* naginata most of all the one in which, as the published sources have it, the true strengths of the second-generation Teruhiro are fully manifested, 「二代輝広の本領が遺憾無く発揮された同作中の優品である」.
Live·Teruhiro lineage
安芸輝広
The Aki Teruhiro School
From Seki to the Inland Sea. The first Teruhiro was signing in Mino in 1589 before taking service with the Fukushima and then the Asano at Hiroshima; generations of the name followed, arming Aki province to the end of the Edo age. The early masters carry the designations — the long continuation was a domain forge doing its steady work.
The The Aki Teruhiro School (安芸輝広), active 1589–1868 in Aki Province across 2 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 1 Jūbi, 1 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 41 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Aki Teruhiro School (安芸輝広) · 1589 – 1868
Teruhiro (輝廣) — Mainline · 1589-1615. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. A katana dated Tenshō 17 (1589) and inscribed Nōshū Seki-jū Teruhiro is the document around which this smith's history was rewritten. Teruhiro is the founding name of an early-Shintō Hiroshima line, and the published sources read it as two closely matched hands set down together: the shodai, Higo no Kami Fujiwara Teruhiro, and his son-in-law the nidai, Harima no Kami Teruhiro. The shodai was a native of Mino, said to descend from Seki Kanetsune, who signed first as Kanetomo, then studied under Umetada Myōju of Kyōto, took service with Fukushima Masanori, changed his name and received the title Higo no Kami, and accompanied his lord from Kiyosu in Owari to Hiroshima in Geishū in Keichō 5 (1600). The traditional account made him a Myōju pupil first and an accomplished smith second. The Tenshō-dated katana overturned the order: the published commentary holds that it proves he was already signing Teruhiro and *meijin*-class while still in Mino, so that, in their words, he had already reached full stature 「明寿入門以前に既に大成していた」 before entering Myōju's circle, a finding that reopens the question of that teaching and is left to future research.
His recognized work is a broad katana, strong in *sakizori* and at its largest carrying an *ō-kissaki*. Over an *itame* that flows toward the edge into *masame* and stands somewhat in *hada-dachi*, the shodai tempers a vigorous *notare* that boxes up in places into large, *hako*-leaning patterns, mixing *gunome* and *gunome-chōji*, with *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* breaking out, *ashi* and *yō* within, a *nioiguchi* that runs tight or subdued with *mura-nie*, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* throughout. The *bōshi* tempers deep and enters *midare*, turning back in *ko-maru* with a deep return that joins the *muneyaki*. The published sources read this *notare* as an admiration for Shizu workmanship, and of the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana they call it 「放胆な作柄を示した初代輝広の傑出した一振」, a blade that, with its wide body and large point, 「迫力に満ち溢れている」.
The *jigane* is where the Mino origin shows most plainly. The shodai's *jigane* is an *itame* run through with *masame*, standing in *hada-dachi*, at times faintly whitish, the *ji-nie* gathered over a forging that is more vigorous than refined. The nidai's *jigane* is the more polished of the two: a tightly worked *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare*, the *ji-nie* laid in minute particles and densely, with *chikei* woven in frequently, a forging the published sources single out as bright and clear. Across both hands the temper is the constant. The principal manner is a *notare*, deep in *nioi*, with *gunome* set into it, *ashi* entering, *ko-nie* thick on the edge, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running, and *tobiyaki* breaking out here and there, the *nioiguchi* bright. A quieter *suguha* register recurs across both, drawn especially on *naginata*, *yari* and a few *katana*, in a *suguha-chō* that undulates shallowly with *ko-gunome*, *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba* along the *habuchi*.
The nidai, an Owari man of the Kanie family commonly called Jinpachi who first signed Kanehisa, became the shodai's son-in-law and is thought, like his teacher, to have had a connection with Myōju; his earliest dated work is of Keichō 15 (1610). His own manner keeps the deep-*nioi* *ko-notare* with *gunome*, the *gunome* standing a little more strongly than in the shodai. Beyond it he turns deliberately to older models, and the record of those copies is unusually explicit. One wide *kata-kiriba* *wakizashi* the published sources read as modeled on Sōshū Sadamune, the master 「彼が最も私淑した相州貞宗に範を」 taken from; a *kanmuri-otoshi* piece in *suguha*, carved with *naginata-hi*, they read as an evocation of old Yamato, particularly Taima; a broad *katana* whose wide, high *notare* with a hardened *koshi-ba* they say calls to mind Kanemoto and Muramasa; and a recent *tantō* they take as a copy after a high Sōshū hand. Through all of them the flowing *hada*, the angular *gunome* and pointed elements, and a Sanbon-sugi-like *bōshi* betray, in their reading, his Mino descent.
What sets the two hands apart from their Mino and Sōshū sources is exactly what the judges name in them. The shodai is read as the bolder, Shizu-touched hand, his *notare* spirited and large; the nidai as the more refined and various, deep in *nioi* and bright in the *ji*, and confident enough to range from Sadamune to Taima to Kanemoto. The published sources hold that the nidai equals or surpasses his teacher, recording that the second-generation Harima no Kami 「二代播磨守は初代に優るとも劣らぬものがある」, and of his finest blades they say his true strength is shown without reserve. The line did not end with him: after the Fukushima house was dispossessed it passed into the service of the Asano daimyō and prospered in Hiroshima for generations, many descendants likewise taking the title Harima no Kami.
For the collector Teruhiro is a scarce early-Shintō name graded Jō-jō saku by Fujishiro. The shodai's surviving production is repeatedly said to number fewer than twenty pieces in all, counting *katana*, *tantō*, *yari* and *naginata* together, and his work has no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; the designated record runs instead through one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, a body of some thirty-five Jūyō blades across both generations, and a prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin. Provenance is thin but real, the recorded names being the Fukushima and Asano daimyō houses the smiths served and the prewar collector Hayashida Shōkei. Of the dated *katana* the published sources say it is exceptional documentary material, and of the early Jūyō example, that it is 「同作中の優品の一である」; of the nidai's best, that 「覇気があって出来も優れている」. Most designated Teruhiro blades are held rather than traded, so an example reaching the market is uncommon and is a notable thing for a private collector to encounter, a record of how a Seki smith carried Mino and Sōshū into the swords of early-Edo Hiroshima.
Teruhiro (輝廣) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Jūyō. A naginata dated to the strengths of his hand, designated at the fortieth Jūyō session, is read by the published sources as the example in which the true strengths of the second-generation Teruhiro are fully manifested. The smith who made it, Harima no Kami Teruhiro, is the second generation of the Aki Teruhiro line, the Hiroshima house of Mino origin that worked under the patronage of the Fukushima and then the Asano daimyō in early Shintō times. He was a native of Owari of the Kanie family, commonly called Jinpachi, and signed at first as Kanehisa before he studied under the first-generation Higo no Kami Teruhiro, was favorably regarded by his teacher, and became his son-in-law. He served the Fukushima house, moved with it to Hiroshima in Geishū, and after that family was dispossessed entered the service of the Asano. His earliest dated work bears a Keichō 15 date of 1610, so that his active years stand close to the first generation's, and he is documented as a *Jō-jō saku* smith of the early Hiroshima school.
His characteristic hand is a *ko-notare* carried in a deep *nioiguchi*, mixed with *gunome* and blades of a pointed *togari-gokoro* tendency. The published sources name this his forte and, on his finest naginata, call the deep *nioi*, the evenly and thickly adhering *ko-nie*, and the *ji* and *ha* alike bright and clear the very essence of his work, 「正に同工の真骨頂である」. Within the temper *ashi* and *yō* enter, *kinsuji* run in the lower half, *sunagashi* streams through, and small *tobiyaki* appear here and there, the whole hardened in a *nioiguchi* that runs bright on his best work and settles toward a subdued *shizumi* on a quieter piece. It is the opposite pole from the showy Bizen clove temper, a controlled undulating line in which the activity is read rather than displayed.
The *jigane* beneath it is an *itame* that takes in a *masame*-leaning, flowing texture and stands somewhat in *hada-dachi*, an open grain rather than a tight one. On the best naginata the *ji-nie* gathers at the finest into dust-fine *ji-nie mijin* laid thickly, with fine *chikei* entering well and the steel clear, while on the wakizashi the same flowing *jigane* stands more plainly with *ji-nie* and *chikei*. The *bōshi* most often turns in a *ko-maru*; on the largest naginata it runs a shallow *notare* to a somewhat *ō-maru* tip on the *omote* and becomes *notare-komi* with a thrusting-up, pointed finish on the *ura*, and on the wakizashi it goes straight to a small round turn on one face and into *midare-komi* on the other.
Two manners recur across his small body of recorded work. The first is the deep-*nioi* naginata just described, the area in which his forte shows fullest. The second is a slightly elongated *sun-nobi* *hira-zukuri* *ko-wakizashi*, somewhat wide in the *mihaba* with a thick *kasane*, presenting the *sugata* of Keichō-era Shintō and deliberately aiming at the flavor of Shizu work, which the published sources call a success, 「志津の風をねらって成功している」, and indeed a typical work of this smith, 「勿論彼の典型作でもある」. On these the temper is a shallow, gently undulating line with small *gunome*, the *nioiguchi* tight, with a *hotsure*-like fraying and a slight *sunagashi*; they carry carvings more often than the naginata, a *bō-hi* or *katana-hi*, *bonji* and a lotus pedestal, *gomabashi* or a plain *suken*. The published sources read both manners as a close inheritance of his teacher's style and infer, as with the first generation, an association with the Kyoto master Umetada Myōju, drawn from the deep-*nioi* *notare* the two hands share and from the small difference in their working years.
Within the school he is set apart from his teacher by his title and by his descent showing through the steel. Where the first generation signs Higo no Kami, the second signs Harima no Kami, and the published sources read three marks as betraying his Mino lineage even where the temper looks to Shizu: the flowing *nagare-hada* in the forging, the pointed *togari-gokoro* blades within the *hamon*, and especially a *bōshi* reminiscent of the Mino Sanpin manner. On the finest naginata they name these explicitly and conclude that they allow one to perceive that he was a swordsmith of Mino lineage, 「彼が美濃系出身の刀工であることを察知させる」. His work is thus legible as Hiroshima Shintō with a Mino root rather than as pure Sōshū, the deep-*nioi* *notare* and the flowing, standing *ji* placing him beside his father and apart from the smiths he admired.
Six of his works are on record, all of them designated Jūyō, spanning *tantō*, *wakizashi* and *naginata*, and all signed; there is no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property among them, and his line is one whose pieces survive in small numbers rather than in quantity. The published sources note that while *tantō* signed Harima no Kami Teruhiro are by no means scarce, dated examples are exceedingly few, so that a *tantō* bearing a date carries high documentary value, and the pieces dated Kan'ei 5 of 1628 and Kan'ei 9 of 1632 are valued for exactly that reason. Recorded ownership is private rather than institutional, and no famous provenance attaches to the recorded blades. A designated Teruhiro of the second generation is not among the unattainable names, but it is a blade that comes to a collector only from time to time and with patience, the deep-*nioi* naginata most of all the one in which, as the published sources have it, the true strengths of the second-generation Teruhiro are fully manifested, 「二代輝広の本領が遺憾無く発揮された同作中の優品である」.