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About the maker

Hizen Tadahiro忠廣

Under this name stands the second generation of the Hizen main line, Ōmi no Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro, the most prolific master the Saga school produced. The published sources set out his life plainly: legitimate son of the first-generation Tadayoshi, he was a youth of nineteen when his father died in Kan'ei 9 (1632), yet works by him are seen from that same year, helped by the disciples who had served under the first Tadahiro. He received the court title Ōmi no Daijō in Kan'ei 18 (1641) and worked until his death at eighty-one in Genroku 6 (1693), a career of more than sixty years. Of that span the NBTHK's commentary writes that among Hizen smiths "he left the greatest number of works" (肥前刀工中でも最も多くの作品を遺している). Working under this code beside him is the founder's own last phase, for in Genna 10 (1624), at fifty-three, the first-generation Tadayoshi received the title Musashi no Daijō and changed his name to Tadahiro, so that the late works signed Musashi no Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro are the founder under his second name. The second generation's hand is read in two manners, both of which the published sources call accomplished: on one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana they record that he made "both *suguha* and *chōji-midare*, and in both he was highly proficient" (直刃と丁子乱れの両様があり、いずれも上手である). The one he most excelled in is the *chū-suguha*. Over a tightly forged *ko-itame* that becomes the Hizen *komenuka-hada*, with *ji-nie* laid in a dust-fine *mijin* layer and fine *chikei*, he tempers a medium straight line tinged with a shallow *notare*, mixing here and there a *ko-gunome* or a slightly pointed element. *Ashi* and *yō* enter well, the *nioiguchi* is deep and in places becomes band-like, *ko-nie* adheres thickly, and fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through it with *hotsure* and an *uchinoke*-like effect at the *habuchi*. The whole closes in a *nioiguchi* that is bright and clear, the *bōshi* straight to a *ko-maru*. The *jigane* is the constant of his work. It is the school's rice-bran *jigane*, a *ko-itame* forged so tightly that the published sources describe one blade as without the least slackness, the *ji-nie* densely and minutely covering it to give a moist, lustrous quality, the steel bright. Against that calm *jigane* the temper stays composed, and where it rises it does so as the second register, the showier Hizen *chōji-midare*: a clove pattern mixed with *gunome*, long *ashi* and *yō* entering, deep *nioi* and *ko-nie*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi*. On one Jūyō tachi the judges note that this clove pattern is the very thing his father had not done, the smith forging "an ordered *midare-ba* in *chōji* that was not seen in his father Tadayoshi" (丁子乱は父忠吉にはない整った乱刃を焼いている). The *bōshi* over both manners is the same straight *ko-maru*. The two registers and the two generations give the corpus its shape. The second generation's *suguha* is the body of it, his *chōji* the brilliant exception; the published sources liken that *chōji* to his father's clove pattern even as they observe how he made it his own. His dated pieces sharpen the picture. One Tokubetsu Jūyō katana carries the date of the very day in Kan'ei 18 on which he received the Ōmi no Daijō title, inferred to be a commemorative work and among the earliest to bear the received-title inscription, its temper read as "an archaic flavor that appears to have been modeled after Rai works" (来物を写したと思われる古調な出来口). The founder's late Musashi no Daijō phase forms the third face: a deep-*nie* *chōji-midare* over a *ko-itame* that takes on a *nashiji-hada*, several of these carrying carving by his Kyoto teacher's house, Umetada Myōju and Umetada Shichiza, *bonji* with a *kurikara* or Fudō Myōō, of which the published commentary says the carving "adds flowers to brocade" (錦上花を添えている). Within the Hizen line his place is exact. He is the prolific center between his father, the founder who carried the Kyoto Umetada training home to Saga, and his own eldest son, the third generation, who took the Tadayoshi name back to the main house and whom the sources call the strongest forger of the first three generations. His own bright *komenuka* *suguha* of deep *nioi* is the standard against which later Hizen work is read. He is set apart from his father not by the *suguha* they share but by the ordered *chōji* the father did not attempt, and from the lesser Hizen hands by the clarity of his *jigane* and the brightness of his *nioiguchi*. When his work reaches beyond his usual composure it is named for it: of one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana the published sources write that, compared with his customary work, it is "powerful in both *ji* and *ha*, a bold, forceful piece" (常々の同作に比して、地刃共に力強く、放胆で迫力のある一口である). For the collector he is among the more attainable of the great Shintō names, the natural consequence of so long and productive a life. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through one hundred and sixty-four blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, three of them Tokubetsu Jūyō, with a Jūyō Bijutsuhin among the founder's Musashi no Daijō works. His provenance reaches into the house he served: blades recorded to the Nabeshima daimyō, to Nabeshima Katsushige and Nabeshima Naomoto, and one transmitted in the Imperial Family, the published record noting that the Nabeshima house required the received-title signature on blades presented to it. Because he made so many, a signed Ōmi no Daijō Tadahiro is among the more findable works by a master of his rank, his *suguha* katana appearing from time to time at the upper tiers; yet most designated blades are held rather than traded, and a Tokubetsu Jūyō example or one of the founder's Umetada-carved pieces remains an uncommon thing to encounter, a document of the school at the height of its production.

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