In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchSummary This blade is attributed to Shimada Sukemune(島田助宗). Sukemune belonged to Shimada school in the Suruga domain(today’s Shizuoka prefecture). Its foundation dates back to the mid-Muromachi period, and it was founded by Yoshisuke(義助). The first-gen Sukemune was the younger brother of Yoshisuke. The swordsmith’s name Sukeume lasted four generations, and they were active in sword-forging during the Tenbun-Kanbun era(1532-1673). We believe the attribution was given to early generation of Sukemune, based on its appraisal. The first-gen Yoshisuke served a powerful feudal family named Imagawa. It is said that he received his maker’s name 義 from Imagawa Yoshitada. Shimada school interacted with other schools in Soshu swordsmiths living near Odawa castle in Kanagawa prefecture. The Suruga domain was vital for strong feudal lords such as Takeda, Tokugawa, and Hojo clan during the Sengoku Jidai (Warring state period). The swordsmiths in Shimada school received many orders from these strong feudal families. Soshu Den It is said that the generations of Sukemune mastered a particular sword-forging tradition called Soshu Den. Shoshu Den was born in the middle of the Kamakura period. Back then, the Yamato and Yamashiro traditions were highly developed, and there were a few renowned swordsmiths from those regions. However, the sword-forging practice was in its infancy in the Kanto area, where the Soshu region was located. At the beginning of the Kamakura government, which was established in 1185, the first Shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo, prioritized making a lot of rules to have its political stability. And he couldn’t afford to hire swordsmiths within the same region or train them. Therefore, the Kamakura government originally ordered weapons to the swordsmiths in the other areas, such as Yamato and Yamashiro. But, since the government was established, the demand for weapons increased exponentially in the government, and they had to figure out how to meet those demands from Samurai who served Kamakura shogunate. Then, the 5th head of the Shogun, Hojo Tokiyori, invited two renowned swordsmiths from other parts of Japan. They were Awataguchi Kunitsuna from Yamashiro province and Bizen Saburo Kunimune from Bizen province. And the 7th-gen Shogun Koreyasu Shino also invited Fukuoka Ichimonji Sukezane from Bizen province. It is said that those three swordsmiths played an essential role in creating the Soshu Den and making the foundation of the Soshu Den. Also another famous figure in the Soshu den is Intou Kunimitsu, an adopted son of Awataguchi Knitsuna. And Kunimitsu passed his excellent craftsmanship to Yukimitsu, his apprentice. And Masamune, one of the most famous swordsmiths in Japanese history, was an apprentice of Yukimitsu. And Masamune was the one that brought Shoshuden to nationwide fame. The tradition Masamune completed became an example of other swordsmiths who learned Soshu Den. Also, Soshu Den influenced many renowned swordsmiths during the Koto- Shinto era. One of examples is Inoue Shinkai from Osaka and Suishinshi Masahide from Edo. Tachi Koshirae This blade is stored in Tachi(太刀) Koshirae. Tachi was mainly used by an armored Samurai with one hand on horseback from the Heian period (794-1185 A.D.) until the early Muromachi period. TACHI was suspended loosely on the left waist with its edge facing the ground so that you could draw it faster to cut down soldiers on the ground. Because of its gorgeous looking, having a Tachi-style sword mounting became a social status among Samurai. Measurement In Japanese sword terminology, the width of the blade is called Motohaba (widest part) and Sakihaba (narrowest part). Its Motohaba is 31mm and Sakihaba is 20mm. And, the thickness of the blade is called Motogasane (thickest part) and Sakigasane (thinnest part). Motogasane is 7mm and Sakigasane is 3mm. Having 80cm cutting edge length, you would get a very strong impression when you appreciate it. This blade is appraised as a Hozon Touken (保存刀剣) issued by NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai: 日本美術刀剣保存協会). Koshirae This kind of fabric attached to the Tsuka and Saya is called Nishiki Zutsumi (錦包み). Nishiki means Japanese brocade and Zutsumi means wrapped. This technique originally appeared during the Heian period (Around 10th century) and Nishiki fabric was very popular to use for the mounting for the court nobles. And, during the Muromachi period, the use of this fabric on the mounting was only allowed for those who served the Muromachi government. We assume the Koshirae was from the late Edo period and this fabric is quite fragile. Therefore, it is rare to find this kind of mountings in this condition. We believe this sword was one owned by a high-class Samurai. Fuchi-Kashira In the Tachi Koshirae (太刀拵), these sword mountings are called the Kabutogane (冑金/兜金) and the Fuchi Kanamono (縁金物). The Kabutogane is a metal fitting attached to a handle’s end. It corresponds to the Kashira (頭) part of the Fuchi Kashira (縁頭). And the Fuchi Kanamono (縁金物) is also a metal fitting attached to the handle but on the opposite side of the Kabutogane. It corresponds to the Fuchi (縁) part of the Fuchi Kashira. In addition, a Sarute/Sarude (猿手) is attached to this Kabutogane. The user of a sword passed the Udenukio (腕貫緒, a cord wrapped around the wrist to prevent a sword from falling out of the hand, mainly used when riding a horse) through this ring. All of these decorative sword mountings have metal rust due to aging. However, we would like you to enjoy this as an antique texture born after a long period. Tsuka and Menuki This Menuki has a simple look. Equipped with circular plain metal fittings, probably made of copper, the shape is specialized for functionality and practicality rather than decorativeness. As this handle is not wrapped with the Tsukamaki thread, we could clearly see the entire appearance of each Menuki. Today, it is challenging to know the design of the cloth that covers this handle because the pattern on the fabric has become difficult to see due to aging. It seems this cloth had a gorgeous design, so we assume the simplicity of this Menuki matched well with this handle’s design. Tsuba and Habaki This antique Tsuba has a typical shape of the Tachi Goshirae Tsuba (太刀拵鐔). The difference between Tachi Tsuba (太刀鐔) and Katana Tsuba (刀鐔) is that the top and bottom positions of the Nakago hole (茎櫃, center hole) are reversed. The Tsuba of this Koshirae has Aoi (葵) Tsuba shape. The Ju-Ji (十字, cross) pattern is designed from the center part. If you focus on four corners, you will find a heart mark-shaped hole is engraved on each edge. It is called the Inome (猪の目) pattern. The Inome pattern has been used since ancient times. As its name implies, the boar’s eyes are the origin of this pattern. Some people believed the Inome design would work as an amulet to protect them from evil spirits or fire. Also, it is said it would bring good luck. The same as other sword mountings of this Koshirae, this Tsuba also has a quite simple appearance without gold or silver paintings. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on March 19th in the 20th year of Heisei (2008). They appraised it as Hozon Touken, the blade worth preserving for Japanese society.
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As written by the shop
Shimada (Suruga) · Suruga · around 1444-1449
Tōken Taikan top 31%
A katana now in Osaka, designated at the fourteenth Jūyō session in 1966, is judged in its commentary to be "sound in both ji and ha and thought to represent Sukemune's finest work"[[c:1]], and it gives the measure of the man. Sukemune is, with the mainstream Yoshisuke, one of the two principal names of the Shimada school of Suruga Province, a Muromachi workshop on the Tōkaidō between Mino and the late Sōshū hearths. The published sources place him as the younger brother of the founder Yoshisuke in the mid-Muromachi period, and the name carried that standing through several generations down into the shintō era. The reference works arrange those hands across a long run, citing Sukemune work as early as the Bun'an and Bunki eras and then a Sukemune of the Tenbun era, so the name spans the whole Muromachi century. Because the signature style does not separate the generations either, a signed Sukemune is read for its workmanship rather than assigned a number, and the date inscriptions, where they survive, do the work the mei cannot.
His characteristic hand is the connected gunome that the published sources name the school's own. Over the itame the temper is a gunome run together in series, crossed with gunome-chōji and pointed togariba, at times taking a box-shaped form, abundant nie lying through it with tobiyaki, kinsuji and sunagashi, the nioiguchi bright. Of the long katana designated in 2020 the NBTHK writes that "the hamon features the Shimada school's hallmark of connected gunome"[[c:2]] and reads its bright nioiguchi, kinsuji and sunagashi as "features that strongly express the characteristic manner of Sukemune"[[c:3]]. The boshi follows the midare, running midare-komi to a ko-maru with hakikake, on the largest blade strongly covered in nie and tending toward nie-kuzure. This is the manner the published record ties to the late Sōshū smiths, to late Seki and to the Senju group, and reads as close to the work of Mino and Ise.
The jigane is the steady foundation beneath the ha. The forging is an itame, well knit and at times dense, that overall flows and leans toward masame, ji-nie lying through it and chikei entering, with a tendency toward hada-dachi where the grain stands open. On the 2020 katana that jigane is described as a tightly forged itame, partly flowing and tending toward masame, the ji-nie finely granular yet densely applied and the chikei clearly visible, a Suruga reading of the Sōshū surface rather than a tight Bizen jigane. It is on this flowing, slightly standing steel that the nie activity of the edge is laid, and the finest of his blades are praised for the clarity that results, the bright nioiguchi and the streaming kinsuji and sunagashi together.
The designations show the Shimada shop's range of form. Three of the four with commentary are shinogi-zukuri katana, several with strong sakizori or a tachi-like koshizori, one of them an eighty-centimetre blade of robust, tachi-like make rich in hataraki; the fourth is a hira-zukuri tantō of orthodox, curvature-less form. On that tantō the manner shifts to the school's other register, a suguha mixed with small gunome over a flowing itame, sunagashi and kinsuji appearing, which the published sources read as work "made with an eye toward the manner of Shizu"[[c:4]], appraising the piece as older than the Tenbun Sukemune of the meikan. His horimono are a school feature carried with skill, bonji, a grass-script kurikara, a clawed ken, futasuji-hi closed with maru-dome and gomabashi, which the commentary ties to Muromachi carving in general and to the work of the Shimohara smiths.
What distinguishes Sukemune is best drawn from his own grounded traits. His is the connected gunome in abundant nie, with kinsuji and sunagashi over a flowing, masame-leaning itame, a provincial Suruga reading of the late Sōshū idiom that the published sources set beside Mino and Ise work; the Shizu-leaning suguha of the tantō is the deliberate exception, and the prominent horimono is the mark of the broader Shimada shop, shared with Yoshisuke and Hirosuke. Where a generational verdict is impossible the commentary turns to the blade, calling the Osaka katana the finest work of the name, sound in ji and ha, and fixing one hand within the long run by the blade rather than the signature. The last of his katana drew the further observation that, though signed on the sashi-ura in the manner of a tachi, it should be understood as an uchigatana, a reading the NBTHK reaches from the position of the mekugi-ana and the overall sugata.
Sukemune's designated record is modest in scale and entirely signed, four of his blades holding the Jūyō rank with his record reaching no higher tier, so his work is encountered as Jūyō and lower-ranked pieces rather than as patrimony held permanently out of reach. He carries a Tōkō Taikan value of 450 monme, a solid provincial standing rather than a first rank, in keeping with a respected one-province name. One blade of his is recorded in Imperial provenance, the kind of holding from which a Shimada work rarely returns to circulation. The number of designated works on record is small, and across the run of generations under one undivided name a securely fine example, of the soundness in ji and ha that the published sources praise in his Osaka katana, is the thing worth waiting for. Such a blade comes to market only from time to time, and when one does it is a good representative of a provincial school whose hand sits close to the late Sōshū tradition.
Where Sukemune stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Soshu-den · Suruga
9 pieces on the market now
The Shimada school (島田) took its name from its base in Suruga Province, where it worked from the mid-Muromachi period along the Tōkaidō between the Mino hearths and the late Sōshū smiths of neighboring Sagami. The published sources place its founding generation in the Kōshō (or Kyōshō) era and trace its principal names without interruption down into the shintō period, with the same names continuing as late as the shinshintō era. Three smiths stand as the school's central hands: Yoshisuke (義助), held to be the principal mainstream name at the head of all Shimada work; Sukemune (助宗), recorded as the younger brother of the founder; and Hirosuke (廣助), placed as the son of the second-generation Yoshisuke. The oldest extant dated example, an Eishō 2 (1505) tantō by Yoshisuke, fixes the early corpus, and because the signature style does not separate the hands, a signed Shimada blade is read for its workmanship rather than assigned a generation. The Shimada smiths produced the working blades of the Muromachi century; one Hirosuke katana, a Kōshū-uchi work dated Eiroku 2 (1559), was held by Hara Mino Nyūdō Toratane of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Takeda, and the cut struck into the mune at the monouchi of a Yoshisuke katana drew a NBTHK remark that it speaks to martial use. Across the members the school reads in a single Soshu-den idiom inflected by Mino and Ise. The jigane the smiths describe is an itame, well knit and at times dense, that flows and leans toward masame, standing somewhat open in hada-dachi, with fine ji-nie lying through it, chikei entering, and a tonality the commentaries repeatedly call whitish; this flowing, slightly standing steel, rather than a tight Bizen surface, is what marks the Shimada hand for the eye. Upon it the smiths set a notare crossed with gunome, with ko-chōji and pointed togariba entering, ko-ashi, abundant nie, and sunagashi and kinsuji running through, the bōshi commonly midare-komi turning back rounded, at times with hakikake; tobiyaki and slight muneyaki appear, and on the larger blades the activity rises toward hitatsura in nie.
Sukemune's particular register is the connected gunome the NBTHK names the school's hallmark, while Hirosuke shows the most robust make, favoring a wide mihaba with sakizori and an extended kissaki. Against this typical midare every hand keeps a quieter exception: a hoso-suguha the commentary calls comparatively uncommon for Yoshisuke, and a suguha mixed with small gunome on a Sukemune tantō read as made with an eye toward the manner of Shizu. The carving tradition is shared throughout, bonji, suken, gomabashi, relief kurikara, and the figures of Marishiten and Fudō Myōō, with openwork sukashi-bori noted by examiners as an uncommon thing to find; the school also produced comparatively many yari, Yoshisuke's ōmi-yari among them. To kantei a Shimada blade is to read the late Sōshū idiom in a provincial Suruga register: the whitish, standing itame beneath a nie-laden notare-gunome with sunagashi, kinsuji, and frequent tobiyaki, set apart from a tight Bizen jigane and tied by the published sources to Sue-Sōshū, late Seki, the Senju group, and the work of Mino and Ise. Form sorts the manner: the broad Sōshū-leaning katana on one side, the school's tantō and wakizashi (often hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, thick kasane, and a withered fukura kare) on the other. Among the members Yoshisuke is the name the sources reach for in describing the group, his finest katana and tantō praised for a jihada and hamon of clear, bright result; Sukemune's Osaka katana is judged his finest work; and Hirosuke's best pieces, one called hakubi, the best among its kind, with a suggestion he privately emulated Bizen Chōgi, number among the finest of the whole lineage. Dated and fully signed works such as those inscribed Shimada Hirosuke are particularly valued, the tangs anchoring the chronology of the later generations, and a rare collaborative blade between Hirosuke and Gensuke attests to the collegial working of the shop. Provenance reaches to the Imperial collection, Honma's inventory of which records works by Yoshisuke, Sukemune, and Hirosuke; with the Takeda general's blade and the documentary dated pieces, these holdings mark the standing of a respected one-province school whose hand sits close to the late Sōshū tradition. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1492-1504 | 6 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1455-1526 | 5 |
| Sukemune助宗 | 1444-1449 | 4 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1573-1592 | 3 |
| Sukemune助宗 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
Sōshū in the Muromachi period
In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
Certifies a genuine blade worth preserving: a signature confirmed correct, or, if unsigned, an era, province, and school that the NBTHK can reliably identify.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
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