The town carvers who broke the Gotō monopoly. The Nara school worked Edo outside the shōgunal patronage system, and from its workshops came the three masters every fittings collector knows — Toshinaga, Yasuchika, Jōi, the Nara sansaku — who turned tsuba and kozuka from heraldic formality into pictorial art: landscapes, figures, and weathered iron alive with invention.
Era
1650 — 1850
Members
76
Kokuhō
0
Jūbun
9
Jūbi
24
Tokujū
15
Jūyō
127
For Sale
43
76smiths0Kokuhō9Jūbun24Jūbi15Tokujū127Jūyō
Branch浜野Hamanofrom 利寿34 smiths
The Edo Nara School (奈良) Lineage
The The Edo Nara School (奈良), active 1650–1850 in Edo across 76 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 9 Jūbun, 24 Jūbi, 15 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 127 Jūyō.
Yasuchika (安親) — Mainline. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Tsuchiya Yasuchika (土屋安親), also known as Yagohachi, was born in Kanbun 10 (1670) as the son of Tsuchiya Chuzaemon, a retainer of the Shonai domain in Dewa Province. While still young he entered the school of Shoami Chinku, married his teacher's daughter, and in Genroku 16 (1703), at the age of thirty-four, went to Edo, where he undertook further training under Nara Tatsumasa — at which point, as the NBTHK setsumei consistently observe, "his innate talent fully blossomed." Around the Shotoku era he entered the service of Matsudaira Daigaku-no-kami, a nephew of Tokugawa Mitsukuni and lord of the twenty-thousand-*koku* Moriyama fief in Oshu. In Kyoho 16 (1731), at the age of sixty-one, he took the tonsure and adopted the art name Tou (東雨). He left numerous masterpieces to the world and was later celebrated — together with Nara Toshihisa and Sugiura Joi — as one of the "Three Masters of Nara" (*Nara sansaku*), recognized as an artist of the very highest ability.
Yasuchika's technical range is exceptional. His oeuvre encompasses work in iron, *shakudo*, *shibuichi*, brass (*shinchu*), and refined copper (*suaka*), with surfaces treated as polished grounds (*migaki-ji*), hammered textures (*tsuchime-ji*), and stone-grain finishes (*ishime-ji*). His signature carving methods include *sukidashi-bori* modeled relief, *takabori* high relief, the thread-fine line work of *kebori*, and — more rarely — the single-stroke *katakiribori* incision. Polychrome metal inlay (*iroe*) in gold, silver, shibuichi, and suaka is deployed with what the NBTHK describes as "an unrivaled equilibrium in compositional planning and in the exquisitely balanced placement of colored metals." His iron *tsuba* frequently employ the distinctive *daigaku-gata* form conceived for his patron, while his *kozuka* demonstrate the capacity to "draw forth a small universe" within a confined surface. In later works signed Tou, NBTHK examiners identify an austere, detached realm (*kotan*) — a shift from the vigorous pictorialism of his Edo-period maturity toward something "profoundly rich in nuance."
Across the designation records, certain evaluative themes recur with striking consistency. The NBTHK praises Yasuchika's "warm, humane sentiment" and "gentle humanism," visible in his treatment of figures such as Jurojin, Daruma, and the creatures that populate his compositions — faces rendered with "an unmistakable mildness," animals depicted so as to seem "almost alive." His narrative scenes are likened to hanging paintings (*ichifuku no e*), unfolding atmospheric effects "akin to watercolor." Whether rendering a carp amid turbulent waves, wild geese descending in rain, or Li Bai gazing at a waterfall, Yasuchika's compositions are praised for their "outstanding" interlinked design across front and back, their "free and untrammeled manner, calm and unforced," and a compositional intelligence in which "tension and relaxed release coexist." In subject, technique, and the sustained refinement of his carving, the setsumei affirm that his is an art in which, as one examiner concludes, "the sharpness of Yasuchika's skill is scattered throughout."[[c:2]]
Toshinaga (利寿) — Mainline. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Nara Toshinaga (利寿), whose common name was Tahei, was born in Kanbun 7 (1667) and died in Genbun 1 (1736) at the age of seventy. One record names him a pupil of the Edo Nara master Toshinaga written 利永, the fourth generation of the school, and places his house at Honjo in Edo. With Tsuchiya Yasuchika and Sugiura Joi he is counted among the Nara Sansaku, the three celebrated masters of the Nara school, and the published sources rank him first among them: the eldest of the three and, in their words, the most skilled[[c:1]]. One commentary calls him the master "praised as first in the Nara school"[[c:2]], another sets him at "the summit of the Nara school"[[c:3]].
What the NBTHK names, again and again, is the force of his chisel. Of a *kozuka* with a tiger beside a waterfall it writes of "carving charged with power into every corner"[[c:4]], of his lions that their leaping high relief is "worth a second look" and "one of the highlights of Toshinaga"[[c:5]]. His relief is high and *sukidashi*, cut back from the plate so that the figure stands proud, and it is enriched with gold, silver, *suaka* and *shibuichi* colour inlay. On a Fujito battle *kozuka* the waves are carved in iron with finely graded *sukidashi* relief, the figures raised higher still, and the colour kept to a minimum.
His materials are wide. He works *shakudo*, iron, *shibuichi*, *oborogin* and roughened *suaka*, very often with an *ishime* texture that the published sources call his own[[c:6]]. Brass is singled out: of a Jurojin-and-tortoise *fuchigashira* they write that brass worked in *sukidashi* is "the method in which this maker excelled"[[c:7]]. Some pieces are finished with lacquer laid over parts of the plate, a Nara touch that darkens the *oborogin* or the copper. His output is dominated by *fuchigashira*, the *fuchi* low-waisted and slightly tall in the ichimonji manner, and the commentary repeats that "tsuba and kozuka are scarce, and fuchigashira are many"[[c:8]]. His tsuba are thick, and an early record doubts that they number more than ten; among them the Omori Hikoshichi and the Mure Takamatsu tsuba are famous.
His subjects run in two registers. The first is the human figure. Shoki and the oni are his particular theme, and the commentary says that "the expressions of Shoki and the oni are especially his own"[[c:9]]. Jurojin with a *minogame* tortoise is another subject he favoured, with several tsuba and *fuchigashira* of similar design surviving. Bishamonten, the Three Kingdoms, the Fujito crossing and the vanguard at the Uji river complete it. Of his mounted warriors the NBTHK writes that they follow the Goto manner but are "more true to life than the warriors of the Goto house"[[c:10]]. The second register is birds and beasts: fighting cocks with chicks at their feet, a tiger crouched above a falling torrent, a parent tiger swimming a raging current while its cub crouches on the bank, a lion with peony, and returning geese descending across a brass sky worked smooth in *sukidashi*.
Through both registers runs a contrast of movement and stillness. On the waterfall *kozuka* the published sources read the water as movement and the crouching tiger as stillness, a tiger "watching intently"[[c:11]] and about to spring. On one gamecock *fuchigashira* the bird is not in its fighting pose: beak closed and feathers lowered, it is read as the still "wooden cock" of the old tale, set against the combative cocks of his other works. A Uji river *fuchigashira* pairs his *fuchi* with a *kashira* added in the late Edo period by Toryusai Seiju.
His record numbers thirty designated works: three Important Cultural Properties, four at Tokubetsu Juyo, twenty at Juyo, and three recognised before the war as Juyo Bijutsuhin. The three Important Cultural Properties are national patrimony and do not change hands. The prewar records name Hosokawa Moritatsu, whose set is now with the Eisei Bunko, and Furukawa Toranosuke; a Jurojin *fuchigashira* comes from the Ryushido collection of Mitsumura Toshimo with a box inscribed by Unno Shomin in Meiji 37 (1904). A Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo *fuchigashira* appears from time to time, a tsuba or *kozuka* far more seldom.
Joi (乗意) — Mainline. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Sugiura Joi (1701-1761), known by the art name Issando, trained under Juei in the lineage of Nara Toshiharu and rose to become one of the celebrated "Three Masters of Nara" (*Nara sansaku*) alongside Toshihisa and Yasuchika. Born in Genroku 14, he also used the names Sen'emon and Eishun throughout his career. His place within this triumvirate secured his lasting reputation as one of the foremost independent metalworkers of the mid-Edo period, working outside the patronage structures that governed the Goto house.
Joi is most closely identified with *nikuaibori*, a modulated relief-carving technique he developed into a personal specialty of unrivaled refinement. Through subtle variations in height and volume, he coaxed remarkably expressive surfaces from bare metal grounds, often completing entire compositions through chisel work alone, dispensing with *zogan* (inlay) and *iroe* (colored metal accents). His preferred format was the *kozuka*, where *nikuaibori* found its fullest expression on *oborogin* polished grounds. He also employed *kebori* (fine line engraving) for textures such as fur and flowing water, and incisive *katakiribori* for sharp geological forms. When he did turn to inlaid techniques, as in his *fuchi-kashira* sets on brass or plain copper (*suaka*) grounds, his *takabori* (high relief) and *sukidashi-bori* displayed equal mastery, with precisely modulated gold and *shakudo* inlay enhancing the sculptural depth.
Joi's *tsuba* are recognized as extremely rare, making any authenticated example a significant survival. His most celebrated subject, the lion casting its cub into Chigiri Valley, exists in closely related versions across multiple designations and is published in the canonical reference *Tagane no Hana*. Whether rendering the anxious gaze of a parent lion or the lively expressions of Chinese boys at play, Joi's work is distinguished by its immediacy and the sheer expressive authority of his chisel.
Tou (東雨) — Mainline. Jūbun. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Shozui (政随) — Mainline. Jūbi, Jūyō. Hamano Masayuki was an outstanding talent among the disciples of Nara Toshihisa and was commonly known as Tarobei. He trained many pupils and established the Hamano school as one of the principal lineages of urban metalworkers (*machibori*), thereby founding an independent tradition comparable in stature to the Yokoya school. As recorded in the *Edo Kinko Meifu*, he "thundered through the world," gaining widespread fame as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings of Nara" (*Nara Shitenno*). He used numerous art names throughout his career, including Otsuryuken, Miboku, Kankei, Rifudo, Yukotei, Shuhosai, Hankeishi, Isshunan, and others. Among his followers, artists such as Kakusui, Naosui, and Masaryo are known as excellent craftsmen who carried forward the lineage.
Masayuki's technique was highly esteemed, and he excelled in every approach — whether in bold *sukidashi-bori*, *nikiai-bori*, *nikubori*, or *katakiribori*. His manner is characterized, as the *Soken Kisho* appraises it, by a preference for "the challenging," through which he reveals a bold spirit; his work is "brisk and forceful."[[c:1]] While inheriting the style of his master Toshihisa and incorporating mannerisms associated with Joi and Yasuchika, he devised an individual sculptural approach, adding distinctive nikubori-like modeling to high-relief subjects. The Hamano school's characteristic manner — using vertically oriented compositions and placing the principal subject in a large, forceful arrangement realized through realism — was firmly transmitted within the lineage.
In his later years, Masayuki left many powerful works that can be called distinctly his own, making vigorous use of robust high relief. His late pieces, often signed with age statements recording his seventies, fully display what the NBTHK describes as "the true essence of his art through the vigorous deployment of his powerful carving techniques." Works from this final period combine daring with attentiveness, their polychrome *iroe* accents executed with great care, standing as eloquent testaments to his elevated technical skill and the enduring vitality of the tradition he founded.
Sekibun (赤文) — Mainline · 1670. Jūyō. Katsurano Sekibun, who employed the art name Yurakusai, was born in Kansei 2 (1790) at Murakami in Echigo Province. As a young man he traveled to Edo and studied under the Hamano family, acquiring the foundational discipline of that distinguished lineage. From his adoption of the art name Yurakusai, it is further conjectured that he undertook training in Kyoto, broadening his technical and aesthetic formation beyond a single school. In Bunsei 7 (1824) he entered the service of the Sakai family of Shonai domain as a retained artisan (*kakae-ko*), and from Koka 2 (1845) onward he settled permanently in Tsuruoka, where he continued to work until his death in Meiji 8 (1875) at the remarkable age of eighty-seven. For his inscriptions he used a distinctive cursive hand modeled on the calligraphic style of Kameda Bosai, the celebrated scholar of his native Echigo.
Sekibun devoted himself to the study of Tsuchiya Yasuchika, refining his skills with that master's example as his ideal, and produced an oeuvre in which *tsuba* are especially numerous. For the ground metal he frequently employed iron and *shakudo*, and he "excelled especially at applying *iroe* to a style of strongly modeled high-relief carving." His technical repertoire further encompassed *sukidashi-bori*, *katakiribori*, *nikuai-bori*, and various forms of *zogan* (inlay). Among pictorial subjects he favored animals and birds, with tigers and newts (*imori*) counted as particular strengths. His celebrated "Dawn Crow" (*Akegarasu*) *tsuba*, conceived as the sky at daybreak with *suaka* ground and *shakudo suemon-zogan* crows beating toward the sun, is singled out by the NBTHK alongside his octagonal newt-design *tsuba* as among his finest achievements.
The NBTHK consistently characterizes Sekibun's work as possessing a "high degree of refinement" in both composition and carving method, praising his "compositional command and carving skill" as "truly superb." His productions are recognized for their distinctive vitality -- an intensity of expression deemed "indeed characteristic of Akafumi" -- realized through the full mobilization of a wide range of carving methods together with inlay and polychrome metalwork techniques[[c:2]]. Whether working on intimate *tsuba* or ambitious multi-component *soroi kanagu* such as his Twelve Zodiac fitting set, Sekibun's works are commended as fully demonstrating the "sharpness of the maker's abilities[[c:3]]," securing his place as one of the most accomplished provincial metalworkers of the late Edo period.
Other smiths
Yasuchika (安親) — Mainline · 1804-1830. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshimitsu (利光) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naoyuki (直随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Nobuyoshi (信盧) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Hiroyuki (弘随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Shigemitsu (重光) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Tsuchiya Shomin (土屋正珉) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masanobu (政信) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masatsugu (政次) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masayoshi (政盧) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Nara (奈良) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Noriyuki (矩随 (Norinobu) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Chikayuki (親随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Haruchika (春親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Hirochika (汎親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Kunichika (国親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masanaga (正長) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Munetoshi (宗利) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naohide (直秀) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naoyasu (直泰) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Noriyoshi (矩最) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Shigechika (重親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Soyu (宗有) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasunari (安成) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasunori (安則) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masachika (昌親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masataka (政孝) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masayoshi (政芳) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Minzan (谺珉山) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Morichika (守親) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Noriyuki (矩随) — Mainline. Hamano Noriyuki (矩随), the first of the name, was a direct pupil of Hamano Shozui, the master who represents the Nara school of Edo metalwork. The published sources say that among Shozui's pupils he showed the most talent and earned the praise of surpassing his teacher[[c:1]], and that with his adopted son, the second Noriyuki, he is known as one of the leading hands of the school. He used the art names Bosoken and Gaiundo, and signed one tsuba Bosaiken Noriyuki. Of the two generations of the name, the designated works are the first's.
He worked in high relief and in *nikuai-bori*, the relief sunk within the plate, and his thin-relief *usuniku-bori* is singled out. On a tsuba of polished *oborogin* he sets an old pine with a dancing crane on one half and a Tatar horseman drawing his bow on the other, and on the reverse a mother and child monkey in a pine above flowing water. The commentary finds the manner of Toshinaga and Shozui within the Nara school carried on in the faces of the figures and in the pines[[c:2]], and calls it an outstanding example among his works.
On a two-piece set of the Six Immortal Poets the *kozuka* and *kogai* are *shakudo* with a crepe-textured *chirimen-ishime*, carved in his own thin relief with colour in gold, silver, *shibuichi* and *suaka*. The faces are raised a step higher than the rest, which the commentary calls a mark of the school[[c:3]]; the reverse plates carry the six poems engraved beside inlaid poem-slips. The published sources call it a fine work of his mature period[[c:4]]. A brass tsuba of Fugen and Monju, carved in thin relief and *nikuai-bori*, is praised for a composition that uses open space with great skill[[c:5]], the two bodhisattvas and their elephant and lion full of expression.
The fourth piece stands a little apart: a *kozuka* of salted salmon in *shakudo nanako-ji*, signed and dated in a *koshin* year at Gaiundo. The commentary notes that it shows little of the Hamano school character but is a strong work of fine carving[[c:6]].
His record is four works designated Juyo, all signed.
Yasufusa (安房) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasutsugu (安族) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Haruyuki/Shunzui (春随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Kaneyuki/Kenzui (兼随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Kigan (亀眼) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Kikan/Yoshihiro (喜寛) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Kikujiro (菊次郎) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masachika (正親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masaharu (政春) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Masahiro (政弘) — Mainline · 1670. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Mitsuharu (光春) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Nagayuki/Eizui (永随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naochika (直親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naoharu (直春) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naosada (直定) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naotoshi (直寿) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Naoyoshi (尚盧) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Narimasa (成政) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Nobuchika (信近) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Nobuyuki/Hozui (鋪随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Sa Yasuchika (左安親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Shigeharu (重治) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Takayuki/Kozui (高随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Tatsumasa (辰政) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshichika (寿親) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshiharu (利治) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshimasa (寿昌) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshinaga (利永) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshinori (寿軌) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshishige (利重) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshiyoshi (寿由) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Toshiyoshi (利善) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Tsuneshige (常重) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasuchika (安親) — Mainline · 1718-1778. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasunobu (安信) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasutada (保忠) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yasuyuki/Hozui (保随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yoshinao (義直) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.
Yoshiyuki (良随) — Mainline. Smith of the Edo Nara School.