Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchWeight: 748g (toshin only) It has arrived, it has arrived—a meito by the swordsmith Enju Nobutoshi, a hanko of the 540,000-koku Hosokawa Clan of Higo Kumamoto during the Bakumatsu period. Nobutoshi was the son of the famous Kumamoto Hosokawa hanko Enju Nobukatsu (real name Takenaga Kizaemon). His father, Nobukatsu, traveled to Edo by clan order to study under the famous master Hosokawa Masayoshi, who was a disciple of Suishinshi Masahide, the master known as the founder of Shinshinto. Upon returning home, he served as a hanko for the Higo Kumamoto Clan. This katana is a tokubetsu chumon (special order) made for a high-ranking samurai of the Hosokawa Clan by Nobutoshi (real name Takenaga Kisaburo), whose surviving works are rare due to the Haitorei (Sword Abolishment Edict) at the end of the Edo period. It was crafted in Bunkyu 2 (1862) (164 years ago), the same year that Princess Kazunomiya (daughter of the 120th Emperor Ninko and sister to the Meiji Emperor) married the 14th Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, and the Namamugi Incident occurred, where Satsuma retainers struck down Englishmen who crossed the procession of Shimazu Hisamitsu near Yokohama. Because it was ordered by a high-ranking samurai, the sugata of this katana features a slightly shorter dimension suitable for nukiuchi (quick drawing), with koshi-zori and a distinct difference between the moto-mihaba and saki-mihaba, resulting in a gokai (magnificent) appearance with a somewhat large kissaki. The jigane is forged in ko-itame hada, presenting a bright and excellent steel. The hamon is finished in nioi-deki with ko-nie, featuring a spirited and bright line of gunome, gunome-choji, and choji-ba. We received this piece from an elderly collector who stated, "I have grown old, so please pass this on at a low price to someone who will cherish it." For this reason, although it would easily pass for Tokubetsu Hozon Token, we are offering it at a special, ultra-low price through the owner's kindness. Please enjoy this precious meito by Enju Nobutoshi—a famous smith with few surviving works, who is of great importance to Kumamoto Prefecture and the Higo Kumamoto Hosokawa Clan.
NihontoWatchEnju School延寿派
Offered by Nipponto
Its only papers are older green Kichō papers, which the NBTHK largely disavows today. Ask the dealer whether it has passed current shinsa. — Hoshi
Yamashiro-den · Higo
14 pieces on the market now
Among the provincial lines that carried the Kyoto manner beyond Yamashiro, the Enju (延寿) school of Higo province grew up at Kumafu in the Kikuchi District, working from the close of the Kamakura period through the Nanbokuchō era. Its founder, Tarō Kunimura, is transmitted in the prevailing account as the son of Hiromura of the Yamato Senjuin line, who married a daughter of Rai Kuniyuki of Yamashiro; by that marriage Kunimura is held to be Kuniyuki's grandson in the female line and a pupil of the Rai workshop (one early text instead places him in the gate of Rai Kunitoshi). The school name reads on the same characters as the Rai line itself, and from that double descent, Yamashiro through the Rai marriage and Yamato through the Senjuin side, the family took its character. Around the founder a cluster of named smiths arose almost at once, Kuniyoshi, Kunitoki, Kuniyasu, Kunitomo, Kunisuke, Kuninobu and Kunitsuna among them, the Enju line attached to the Kikuchi clan and loyal to the Southern Court, so that the dated blades carry that history in their Southern-Court eras. The published sources describe Enju work as one that broadly resembles the Rai school[[c:1]], refined in suguha yet cooler and whiter than its Kyoto parent, and they name the provincial accents by which the two are separated. The forging is an itame or closely packed ko-itame that flows toward the edge into masame, the grain standing a little, with fine ji-nie laid on and delicate chikei entering; over it rises a whitish shirake-utsuri, the surest single Enju tell, the cool reflection of a Kyushu steel that is not quite the bright Rai jigane. The temper is a chū-suguha or narrower hoso-suguha, the nioiguchi carried somewhat shizumi (sunken and quiet), often breaking into nijūba, the doubled line that recurs across the line; ko-ashi, yō, ko-nie, fine sunagashi and kinsuji play within it, the activity gentler than the brighter Rai suguha. The bōshi turns back on a larger radius than Rai's tight ko-maru, a shallow ō-maru with a short kaeri.
The signature is a tool of attribution: across the line the right half within the kuni (国) enclosure is cut in an ear-shaped form, a calligraphic habit the sources say cannot be confused with another school. Against true Rai, the school is read by its masame-lean, its whitish utsuri, its sinking nioiguchi and its quieter internal work, the ji and ha running a degree softer than the Yamashiro line. To kantei an Enju blade is to weigh those provincial accents against the Rai air it carries: a wheel-like wa-zori and Kyoto refinement may recall the parent at a glance, but the nagare in the ji, the shirake-utsuri, the subdued nioiguchi and the ear-shaped kuni settle the attribution, and the level of the work then narrows it to a hand. The founder Kunimura sets the quiet register and signs the slender, sharply tapering tachi the sources call distinctive even within the school; among the later smiths, Kunitoki survives in relative number and runs his suguha the busiest with ko-gunome and kinsuji, Kuniyasu is the most nie-laden and brightest, Kunisuke cuts the boldest chisel and hardens a unique flaming bōshi on his wide pieces, while Kuniyoshi, Kuninobu and the various other Kuni- smiths work the same vocabulary, the best of them refining the steel to a clarity that escapes the school's whitish thinness. The corpus runs mostly to slender signed tachi and to ō-suriage mumei katana attributed on appraisal, with broad sunobi tantō in the Nanbokuchō phase, the work confined to long blades in the founder's case. Provenance is unusually grand for a provincial line: blades pass through Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and rest in the Hosokawa, Date, Uesugi, Owari and Mito Tokugawa houses, with examples held today by the Sano, Tokugawa, Seikadō and other institutions. A signed ubu Enju tachi is among the rarer encounters in Higo work; most survive as the mumei attribution, held as heritage rather than offered. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunimura國村 | 1275-1278 | 15 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1317-1353 | 32 |
| Kunisuke國資 | 1346-1370 | 22 |
| Kuniyasu國泰 | 1329-1331 | 16 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1275-1278 | 7 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
This work carries older NBTHK “Kichō”-era papers, which the NBTHK no longer issues and largely disavows today. To confirm the attribution, submission to an official Japanese examination body (such as the NBTHK or NTHK) for modern certification could be considered.
For returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
¥450,000