Phase 1 · The Musashi Kotetsu School (虎徹) · 1650 – 1700

5 smiths · 0 Kokuhō · 5 Jūbun · 11 Jūbi · 10 Tokujū · 133 Jūyō

Major smiths

• Kotetsu (虎徹) — Mainline · 1644-1677. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. On a wakizashi of his debut years Kotetsu cut his own biography into the nakago: a native of Echizen who, past half a hundred years (半百), came to live in Edo of Musashi and gave himself to the smith's craft. Nagasone Okisato, called Sannojo, who after taking lay orders signed Kotetsu Nyudo, was originally an armorer (katchu-shi) of Echizen; around Meireki 2 (1656), when he was about fifty years old, he moved to Edo and turned swordsmith, a conversion the published commentary restates on blade after blade. Dated work runs from that same Meireki 2 to Enpo 5 (1677), the year before his death: one of the most celebrated careers in the Japanese sword fits inside two decades. The sources explain the sudden fame concretely: he brought from the armorer's forge a rare skill in treating iron, he excelled at carving, and he won his name by devising a strikingly novel hamon, the juzu-ba[[c:1]], the proven sharpness of the edge and the beauty of the carving[[c:2]] doing the rest. The modern commentary calls him the most popular smith of the entire Shinto age[[c:3]]. The standing formula of the published sources gives his work in one sentence: the jigane is strong, and the ji and ha are bright and clear[[c:4]]; most of his blades open with a yakidashi[[c:5]], the short straight start of the temper above the machi. Above it, in the mature work, runs the hamon that made the name: the juzu-ba, the peculiar gunome-midare[[c:6]] whose round-headed gunome[[c:7]] link so evenly that the crests stand almost in one line, like a string of prayer beads. Thick ashi enter frequently, the nioi is deep, ko-nie lies thick, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run through the ha, and the nioiguchi is bright and clear. The boshi is typically sugu with a small round return, and in his later years he often burned a gunome across the yokote itself, a habit one text calls the idiosyncratic gesture of Kotetsu[[c:8]]. The jigane is the armorer's legacy, and the sources say so directly. Of a kanmuri-otoshi wakizashi of Meireki 2 or 3, his first manner, the commentary writes that the forging of the jigane is good even among his own works, well kneaded and extremely strong[[c:9]]; in those early blades a large open hada (大肌) surfaces toward the middle, and the so-called tekogane (テコ鉄), the armorer's billet iron, appears in the ji. In the prime the forging tightens to a ko-itame knit to the utmost, ji-nie thick and dust-fine, chikei fine, the steel clear and bright, while flecks of jifu (地斑) still surface here and there. The horimono are his own hand: the early kurikara in splendid openwork (欄間透) is read straight from the Echizen carving of the Kinai school (記内彫), the add-mei moves from dosaku horinokore (同作彫之) to horimono dosaku (彫物同作), the shinkitae-saku addendum (真鍛作) marks selected forgings, and even unsigned carvings are given to him outright on the fineness of the chisel. The NBTHK dates his blades almost by the signature alone. He signed first with the old-iron characters (古鉄), a form with almost no parallel; then in the hane-tora manner; and from the eighth month of Kanbun 4 (1664) in the hako-tora form, both occurring within that single month. The early period belongs to the hyotan-ba, shallow gunome paired in twos[[c:10]] whose fused silhouettes suggest the double gourd, which one Juyo text dates as the hamon often seen from the end of Manji into the first years of Kanbun[[c:11]]. The later period carries the juzu-ba over the typical Kanbun-shinto sugata[[c:12]]: mihaba tapering markedly from base to tip, shallow sori, a compact chu-kissaki. The texts set the summit late, from Kanbun 10 to about Enpo 2 or 3[[c:13]], call the sober blades of about Kanbun 8 mostly tight in the nioiguchi, short of flamboyance but solid[[c:14]], and praise a wakizashi of Enpo 3 or 4 as a work of complete ripeness[[c:15]]. Two registers stand aside. Suguha is comparatively rare for him, and when he took it up the nioiguchi as a rule tightens[[c:16]]. Tanto are rarer still, probably not reaching ten extant pieces[[c:17]]; in them the jifu stands out, the nioi runs deep with coarse nie, sunagashi and kinsuji mingle, and the feeling of Soshu is strong, one text reading the aim as lying in the direction of Go (江辺). The cutting tests are nearly a second signature. Many of his designated blades carry gold-inlaid attestations by Yamano Kaemon no Jo Nagahisa and Yamano Kanjuro Hisahide, the leading authorities on test-cutting of the day[[c:18]], recording two-body and three-body cuts[[c:19]] dated to the day. These kinzogan inscriptions sit on the nakago beside his own mei as certifications of the edge, never as signatures. That wakizashi outnumber katana, with frequent masterpieces among them, one text lays to commissions from wealthy merchants more than from the warrior class[[c:20]]. Honma Junji's verdict stands in the Juyo Bijutsuhin records: among the Kanbun-shinto smiths, Kotetsu of the east is, with Sukehiro and Shinkai of the west, beyond question of the first rank[[c:21]]; the same note adds that a market price overtaking the old masterpieces[[c:22]] goes too far. The Nagasone forge outlived him: Okimasa, his adopted son, succeeded as the second-generation Kotetsu, with Okinao and Okihisa completing the gate, Okinao read as a daisaku hand during the master's lifetime. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, the top grade. The official record carries 129 designated works: five Important Cultural Properties, ten Tokubetsu Juyo and 102 Juyo, 112 in those two tiers together, and ten prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin. The record is almost entirely signed, 115 signed blades against a single unsigned piece, so the mei chronology above doubles as the connoisseur's map of the work. The recorded provenance runs through the great houses: the Nabeshima of Hizen, the Shimazu, the Okubo of Odawara, the Uwajima Date, the Maeda of Kaga and the Imperial Family; one blade passed through the house of Yamada Asaemon, the prewar premier Inukai Bokudo owned the wind-and-thunder-gods wakizashi of Enpo 5, his last year, and a blade of Kanbun 1 rests in the Tsukamoto Museum of Art. The five Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved beyond the market; nearly everything else stands in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo registers, long held in private collections, so a genuine Kotetsu surfaces only rarely and commands the very top of the market when it does. For the connoisseur the recognition runs ahead of the nakago: a juzu-ba over a strong, bright jigane in a Kanbun-shinto sugata reads as Kotetsu before the signature is ever examined.
• Okimasa (興正) — Mainline · 1661-1690. Jūbi, Jūyō. Among the works of Nagasone Okimasa that Honma examined, one Genroku katana is judged to be the foremost, and the published commentary holds that it approaches the fine work of Kotetsu himself[[c:1]]. Okimasa is the heir of the Kotetsu school. The published sources record that he studied under Nagasone Kotetsu Okisato, was later adopted, and succeeded as the second-generation Kotetsu, his technical ability standing second only to his master[[c:2]]. They go further: among blades signed Kotetsu there are probably pieces made as Okimasa's *daisaku*, substitute workmanship for the master, so that the two hands are not always separable. The dated work that can be verified runs from Kanbun 13 (1673) to Genroku 3 (1690), the silhouette throughout the wide-bodied, shallow-curved, *chu-kissaki* shape of the Kanbun-Shinto era. He worked in Edo, in the years when the late master's name had become the most sought in the city. His representative hand is the *juzu-ba* inherited from Kotetsu, a chain of round-headed *gunome* linked along the edge like a string of prayer beads. The published sources call this manner his forte and read it as the hand received from his master. Two things make it his own rather than a copy, and the commentary names both. The first is a *habatori* in which the *gunome* run together in paired units, *futatsu-zure*, surfacing repeatedly through the temper. The second is the quality of the *nie*: it runs somewhat coarser than Kotetsu's and breaks into *basake*, a patchy unevenness in the hardened edge. The judges treat this not as a defect but as a point of interest, the very feature by which Okimasa is recognized. On one wakizashi the published record reads, "in points such as the *nie* set somewhat coarse and the *sunagashi* applied vigorously, Okimasa's characteristics are well displayed[[c:3]]." The *jigane* over which this temper sits is a well-packed *ko-itame*, often mixed with *mokume* and at times standing into open *itame*, with fine *ji-nie* laid thickly in a dust-like *mijin* and *chikei* entering throughout, so that the steel reads bright and clear. Over it the *hamon* opens with a *suguha*-toned *yakidashi* at the base, the Edo convention, then rises into the *juzu-ba* on a *notare* foundation. Thick *ashi* and *yo* enter, the *nioi* is deep, *ko-nie* adheres, *kinsuji* and long *sunagashi* run through, and the *nioiguchi* stays bright. The *boshi* runs straight into a *ko-maru* with *hakikake* toward the point. Several blades bear *bo-hi* carved through the body, and a number carry gold-inlaid cutting-test inscriptions on the reverse, recording the blade's proven cutting power. The published sources are candid that Okimasa is hard to date. His signatures take many forms, dated examples are few, and the *kaisho* form of the character *masa* is noted to appear only on Enpo 4 pieces. Within his oeuvre the commentary draws two manners. One is the *juzu-ba* prime described above, brought on his best blades to what the judges call a fully satisfying result, spirited and forceful. The other stands a little apart: the *yakihaba* widens into a shallow large *notare*, the *nie* running strong and uneven with *yubashiri*-like patches and *tobiyaki* mixed in, on a robust wide body with thick *kasane* and deep curvature. Of one such katana the sources speak of a manner overflowing with rustic vigor[[c:4]], heroic in its grandeur, while noting that the bright *nioiguchi* and the paired *gunome* that still surface betray the same hand. One vein of this bolder work the commentary reads as touching the style of Izumi-no-kami Kaneshige, a connection between Kaneshige and the Nagasone group. What sets Okimasa apart is measured against his master and within his own house. The judges read his blades as truly in the Kotetsu manner, yet repeatedly point to the wider *yakihaba*, the paired *gunome*, and the coarser, *basake*-prone *nie* as the places where he diverges from Kotetsu's calmer, cleaner edge. He is the open, public face of the line: as second-generation Kotetsu he signed and stood at the front, while one *gassaku* katana, returned from the United States, preserves an inscription showing the smiths Okihisa and Okinao supporting him behind the scenes. Signatures reading Kotetsu Okimasa make the succession explicit on the tang itself, and one such long-signed katana the commentary singles out as a work in which he pursued his own individuality while inheriting the master's style. For the collector he is a leading Shinto name whose best signed katana, the sources say, approach Kotetsu's own. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the Juyo rank, twenty-five blades in that tier, together with one katana certified Juyo Bijutsuhin in 1942, the piece Honma called the foremost of the maker's works he had seen[[c:5]]. Provenance is recorded only thinly: an Ito family katana and a blade once held by Wada Torao, with no museum holder on record. A signed Okimasa, then, is held more often than it is traded, and a katana in his juzu-ba manner, sound in body and bright in the edge, comes to a private collector only from time to time, a document of the Kotetsu line at the moment its second generation took it up.
• Okihisa (興久) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Jūyō. Smith of the Musashi Kotetsu School.
• Nagasone Kotetsu (長曽祢興里) — Mainline · c.1597-1678. Jūyō. Smith of the Musashi Kotetsu School.
• Toranyudo (虎入道) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Jūyō. Smith of the Musashi Kotetsu School.