The wave that named an age. From Soboro Sukehiro’s rustic beginnings, his adopted heir Tsuda Sukehiro perfected the tōranba — the billowing temper line that defines Osaka shintō — and died at forty-six having signed some of the most prized blades of the entire shintō era. With Sukenao the line ran to the 1690s: three smiths, and a papered legacy few whole schools can match.
The The Settsu Sukehiro School (助広), active 1624–1700 in Settsu Province across 7 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 1 Jūbun, 8 Jūbi, 11 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 150 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Settsu Sukehiro School (助広) · 1624 – 1700
Sukehiro (助廣) — Mainline · 1657-1682. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The second-generation Sukehiro, the Tsuda Echizen no Kami Sukehiro, was born at Uchide village in Settsu Province, the present Ashiya, in Kan'ei 14 (1637), his common name Jinnojo. He studied under the first-generation smith called the Soboro Sukehiro, and after his teacher's death he became his adopted son and succeeded as the second generation. In Meireki 3 (1657) he received the court title Echizen no Kami, and in Kanbun 7 (1667) he was retained as house smith by Aoyama Inaba no Kami Munetoshi[[c:1]], the governor of Osaka Castle; he died in Tenna 2 (1682) at the young age of forty-six. The first generation was a pupil of the first Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke and so stood in the Osaka-Ishido choji tradition, from which the second generation's earliest work descends before he broke away. His name rests on one invention. The published sources state that he came to found the distinctive temper called toran-midare (濤瀾乱), the regular large gunome cresting like ocean swells, and they place him with Inoue Shinkai of Osaka and Nagasone Kotetsu of Edo among the masters of the age.
The full and famous manner is the toran-ba. Over a tightly forged ko-itame the published sources record a large gunome-midare that takes a billowing, turbulent-wave appearance, opened at the base by a short straight yakidashi; the nioi runs deep, ko-nie adheres thickly, ashi enter, sunagashi and kinsuji run through, and tobiyaki-like jewels are at times tempered along the upper half. The nioiguchi, the sources return to again and again, is bright and clear. The published record names this manner his own creation outright and describes its sweep: that he founded the toran and won universal acclaim, a development that exerted great influence not only in his own time but on later generations and on the swordsmiths of the Shinshinto age. The texts read his development as a single arc, stated almost verbatim across his blades: in the early period a choji-midare in the Ishido manner, then a turn to gunome-midare, and at last the founding of the toran that is uniquely his.
The forging beneath the temper is the second pillar of his hand. The published sources describe a ko-itame that is most tightly packed, the steel clear, with ji-nie applied thickly in a fine, dustlike manner and fine chikei entering well. It is a bright and well-ordered jigane, and the sources find in it, with the temper above, the source of his renown: the precise clarity of the jigane and the deep, bright character of the nioiguchi. Alongside the celebrated toran runs a suguha he handled with equal mastery. The published sources, having named the toran, add that apart from it his suguha is also exceedingly skilled, and they describe it as a chu-suguha carrying a shallow notare, often a five-fold undulation that the judges treat as a point of appreciation peculiar to him. There too the nioi is deep, ko-nie thick and finely even, with kinsuji and sunagashi within, and the boshi runs straight and turns in ko-maru, the point often showing hakikake and a somewhat deeper temper that the sources read as his habitual hand.
The chronology of his work turns on a single date, read straight off the nakago. The published sources record that from the second month of Enpo 2 (1674) he changed the earlier angular kaku-Tsuda signature, cut in gyosho, to the cursive maru-Tsuda in sosho, a change that followed a Konoe-style calligraphy bestowed through his domain; the world calls the earlier form kaku-Tsuda (角津田) and the later maru-Tsuda (丸津田), so the form of the signature alone dates a blade before or after that line. The dense dated inscriptions of the Enpo years give his toran a tight year-by-year chronology, from the youthful, vigorous toran of the Kanbun thirties to the fully realized pieces of the late Enpo and Tenna years. Of the manner of these two registers the sources are candid about the standing of his suguha: while the brilliant toran is his fame, there are those who praise the suguha the more, the published sources writing that some hold his straight temper above the showier wave[[c:2]]. The two-character signature, the sources note, belongs only to his late work and is exceedingly rare; carved blades are rarer still, his oeuvre carrying horimono only seldom and then by a specialist carver, the Osaka carver Nagasaka Yuhoken named in connection with his and Sukenao's blades.
Within the school he is the founder of the toran and one of the twin masters of Osaka Shinto. The published sources set his suguha repeatedly beside that of Inoue Shinkai of the same province and call the two a twin peak, the discriminator named outright: the nie of Sukehiro's straight temper is finer in particle and more evenly arranged, and from the edge toward the ji there appears a minute activity the sources liken to the look of finely torn hosho paper, 「奉書紙を裂いたような細かな働きが顕著に看取される」. They measure him against his own teacher as well: handling the Soboro Sukehiro's rare suguha in his own bright, clear nioiguchi, he is judged the master who surpassed his teacher, 「師父にまさる名工である」. And they place him against Edo: with Nagasone Kotetsu he is 「古来、新刀中の東西の両横綱とも称せられている」. His foremost pupil was Tsuda Sukenao, who carried the toran forward, and the manner he founded shaped the Osaka swords of his day and after.
In Fujishiro's grading he is Sai-jo saku, the highest rank, and in the Toko Taikan his valuation stands among the very highest of the Shinto smiths. The weight of designation behind his name is heavy: among the blades on record one is an Important Cultural Property, with six in the Tokubetsu Juyo tier and the great body of his work, some eighty-nine pieces, in the Juyo tier; he has no National Treasure on record. The richest provenance gathers, as one would expect, around his patron: many of his finest pieces descend in the Aoyama house of the Osaka castle governors, among them the great tachi dated Enpo 6 named Murasame (村雨), forged at Munetoshi's order and long secretly held in the family, said to have been brought out only at the prayers for rain, its blade bearing the Sanskrit characters for Daiitoku Myo-o[[c:3]] and Marishiten (摩利支天). Through the same house passed the celebrated collaborative katana of Enpo 3 by Sukehiro and Inoue Shinkai, which Kamata Gyomyo later praised in his Shinto Bengi (新刀弁疑). His provenance otherwise rests largely with long-private collections rather than named institutions. Of his designated works on record, almost all sit in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers and so are held more than traded; a Sukehiro of the first quality, and above all an Aoyama piece, comes to a private collector only rarely, a landmark when it does.
Sukenao (助直) — Mainline · 1668-1693. Tokujū, Jūyō. Sukenao was born in Kan'ei 16 (1639) at Takagi in Yasu District of Ōmi Province, known by the common name Magotarō or, in other entries, Magodayū, and his dated blades run from Kanbun 8 (1668) to Genroku 6 (1693), the year he turned fifty-five. The published sources record that he first entered the school of the first-generation Soboro Sukehiro and then perfected his craft under the second, Tsuda Echizen no Kami Sukehiro, that he became Sukehiro's brother-in-law and so prefixed the Tsuda surname to his signature, and that after the master died in Tenna 2 (1682) he settled permanently in Osaka as his successor. Through the Enpō years many of his blades are signed Takagi-jū, which the published sources read as a return to his native village once his training was complete. Among the Tsuda pupils his hand stands closest to the master, and the commentary on a Tokubetsu Jūyō katana from his last years calls it so well made as to be "difficult to tell apart from his master Sukehiro"[[c:1]], a work of fully matured technique.
The manner for which Sukenao is known is the *tōran-midare*, the surging large-wave temper that the published sources say Sukehiro originated and Sukenao faithfully inherited. He opens the edge at the base with a straight *yakidashi*, then raises large *gunome* mixed with *chōji* and *ko-notare* that roll into the wave. Long *ashi* enter, the *nioi* is deep, and *ko-nie* adheres thickly, with *sunagashi* and fine *kinsuji* running through and at times a few *tobiyaki* above the line. The published record describes the usual result in nearly the same words on blade after blade: deep in *nioi*, well covered in *ko-nie*, the *nioiguchi* bright and clear, and among the works some that approach Sukehiro[[c:2]].
The *jigane* beneath the wave is a tightly packed *ko-itame* in which fine *ji-nie* gathers densely and *chikei* enters, the steel clear. On the finest pieces it tightens almost to *nashiji*. A Tokubetsu Jūyō of his maturity shows exactly this forging under a *tōran-midare* mixed with *gunome*, deep in *nioiguchi* with thick *ko-nie*, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi*, and the commentary concludes that "the distinctive features and merits of Sukenao are fully displayed in both *ji* and *ha*"[[c:3]]. The *bōshi* across his work runs straight to a *ko-maru* with a small return, at times with *hakikake* at the tip.
Beside the full *tōran* the published sources name further registers, so that his work is read in more than one face. One is a *gunome-midare* and *notare*, the large *gunome* standing without rising fully into the wave. Another is a calm *suguha* or broad *suguha*, which he handled with skill even as the wave remained his renown. A Jūyō katana of Enpō 3, made while he was still at Takagi, is tempered in a broad *suguha*, and the commentary, granting it is quiet, adds that "it is a dignified work all the same"[[c:4]]. Of a dated *wakizashi* the judges write that besides the wave he "handles a *suguha* like this one with great skill"[[c:5]]. His own carving stays to a simple *bō-hi*; on a blade of Jōkyō 3 the *kurikara* and *hataboko* were cut, as an inscription records, by the carver Nagasaka Yūhōken.
Where his hand parts from the master's, the published sources say so plainly. His katana tend to be broader in body, and one Tokubetsu Jūyō is called his typical work, "broader than Sukehiro, a dignified shape"[[c:6]] with a deep *nioiguchi* that approaches the master's best. His *tōran* can carry *sunagashi* along the edge and somewhat coarser *nie* than Sukehiro's[[c:7]]. Two blades recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection show both sides of this judgment. A katana of Genroku 3, made at fifty-two, is called a masterpiece of his work that "nearly reaches the level of his master"[[c:8]]. A *wakizashi* of Enpō 5, signed Takagi-jū and inscribed as forged from refined steel, shows that he excelled in *suguha* as his master did, yet Honma adds that "the quality of its *jigane* falls far short of the master"[[c:9]].
Sukenao is graded Jō-jō saku by Fujishiro and ranks among the leading names of Osaka Shintō. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. His record runs through the modern tiers instead, with four blades at Tokubetsu Jūyō and fifty-nine at Jūyō, sixty-three across the two tiers, every one of them signed and many of them dated. Provenance is recorded for only a few, among them a katana from a Matsudaira line and another once owned by a retainer of the Matsumoto domain in Shinano. Most designated work of his standing is held rather than traded, so a signed and dated Sukenao comes to market only from time to time, and a katana in his full *tōran-midare* is the more sought when it does: the work of the pupil who came closest to Tsuda Sukehiro.
Sukehiro (助廣) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Tokujū, Jūyō. Smith of the Settsu Sukehiro School.
Hirosuke (廣助) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Smith of the Settsu Sukehiro School.
Sukehiro (助廣) — Mainline · 1684-1688. Smith of the Settsu Sukehiro School.
Suketaka (助高) — Mainline · 1661-1673. Smith of the Settsu Sukehiro School.
Other smiths
Takato (高任) — Mainline · 1673-1681. Smith of the Settsu Sukehiro School.