NihontoWatchA mumei tanto with competing attributions to Sue Hosho and Yamato Yoshimitsu Hawatare: 8 sun 7 bu (26.363 cm or 10.38"). Motohaba: 3.126 cm. Kasane: 8.49 mm. Hirazukure, iroi mune. A bright hosho suguba, ko nie, sunagashi mixed in. The jigane is tightly packed masame with fine jinie and long kinsuji forming along the masa. The boshi is maru, with an insignificant kaeri. NBTHK Koshu Tokubetsu Kicho and Tokubetsu Hozon to Sue Hosho. NTHK/NPO certificate to Yamato Yoshimitsu, around Kemmu (1334-1336). Formal aiguchi koshirae with horn fuchi-kashira, unusually large Goto solid gold menuki of roster and hen, an earlier Goto kozuka shakudo with very fine nanako with roster, chick, and adolescent in solid gold. As per Robert Haynes, 'Likely early main line Goto. The menuki might be main line as well, but later'. The storage scabbard is finished in high quality, thick black lacquer. A pegged kiri wood box with hakogaki to Hosho. There is also a lacquer storage box with Tokugawa, Kiri, and Kiku mon. Tanto came into widespread use after the two attempted Mogul invasions in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Many highly skilled smiths turned their attention to tanto production, not only in Soshu, as seen iin the well known examples, but other provinces as well. Hosho Tanto tended to have a slender sugata, and wide kasane. Because of the consistency of workmanship throughout the generations, it is difficult to make precise attributions of mumei pieces . Kunimitsu, working around Koan jidai (1278-1288) is credited with the founding of the Hosho school. There are thoughts that Sadamitsu founded the school, but since there are no extant works, it has defaulted to Kunimitsu, who some say had also signed Sadamitsu. There is a Juyo Bunkazai tachi, signed nijimei Sadatsugu, a treasure of the Kishu Tokugawa that has all the characteristics of the Hosho school, and has a more antique feel, but he is not included in the genealogies. There is an NTHK/NPO kantei to Tosa Yoshimitsu, working around Kemmu (1334-1336). The first generation Tosa Yoshimitsu started to forge swords in late Kamakura, around 1306. There followed six generations. Most extant examples are tanto. The 1st gen., Tokuji (徳治, 1306-1308), Tosa “Yoshimitsu” (吉光), whoes real name was Fujiwara Gorōzaemon (藤原五郎左衛門), is believed to be either the student of Awataguchi Masamitsu (正光) or of the 1st generation Yamato Senju’in Yoshimitsu (吉光). However, ther is another theory is that he came from the Tegai school. There is speculation that that the 1st gen. Senju’in Yoshimitsu and Tosa Yoshimitsu were the same smith. There is a tachi signed, “Shōan ninen hachigatsu muika Yoshimitsu” (正安二年八月六日吉光, - Shōan second year eighth month sixth day - August 6, 1300]), which has been attributed to Yamato Yoshimitsu is actually a work of Tosa Yoshimitsu. Unfortunately there are very few Tosa Yoshimitsu works extant from before the Muromachi period, so it is impossible to make definite statements about the first generation’s affiliation. There are early tanto extant which are relatively small and which have have a thick kasane, the hada tends somewhat to masame and shows shiraki with a suguba hamon. The sugata that I have seen, most resembles the Hosho attribution. Whichever is correct, this is a high quality Yamato tanto from later Kamakura or early Nambokucho. Dr. Homma: "Once the mei has been removed, the best attribution is only a guess". Hosho, being primarily a Kamakura school, Sue (later) Hosho would refer to later Kamakura or Nambokucho works. Although there are a couple of outliers in Muromachi, these are generally attributed mumei or o-suriage, and they need not be considered. Storage scabbard is finished in high quality, thick black lacquer. High Quality Same - Clear Color & Large Nodules Goto Solid Gold Roster & Hen. Note: kinsabe Early Goto Solid Gold Hen Adolescent & Chick on Shakudo Nanako Solid Gold Habaki With Tokugawa Mon Tokubetsu Hozon - 2019 Koshu Tokubetsu Kicho - 1976 Around Kemmu (1334-1336) / Two mekugi ana (?) / Maru with insignificant kaeri / Hosho Suguba Sunagashi mingling / Masame packed together / Hirazukure Iroi mune / Ubu Mumei /#1,0454 NTHK/NPO - 2020
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Yamato-den · Yamato
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From the close of the Kamakura period into the Nanbokucho, the Hosho school worked in Takaichi District of Yamato Province, the old province whose forging traditions grew up around the great temples of Nara and answered to their need for arms. The line belongs to Yamato-den, one of its five schools alongside Tegai, Senjuin, Shikkake and Taima, and like them it carried the conservative temper of a smithing world bound to monastic patronage. Its smiths share the character Sada as the common element of their names, among them Sadatsugu, Sadamune, Sadayoshi, Sadakiyo, Sadaoki and Sadamitsu, and the published sources rank Sadamune and Sadayoshi as the two most knowable hands, recording that both styled themselves Hosho Goro. Sadayoshi is the smith who most often inscribes his residence and a working date, anchoring the school to the very end of Kamakura with eras such as Bunpo, Genko and Karyaku; Sadakiyo and Sadaoki follow as the textbook hands through whom the group manner is read in full, while Sadamitsu carries the masame idiom forward into the Nanbokucho generations. The forging is where every Hosho smith is known. Across the school the jigane becomes an all-over masame-hada, the straight grain running cleanly from machi to point and out onto the mune, frequently with a flowing nagare tendency, the steel dense and refined with ji-nie thickly adhered and chikei entering along the grain; a nie-utsuri stands faintly over the masame on the more tightly forged tanto. Over this grain the smiths temper a quiet suguha, often a suguha-cho carrying a shallow notare with small gunome and ko-midare, the temper not standing apart from the steel but intertwining with it and fraying repeatedly into hotsure, gathering nijuba, kuichigai-ba and uchinoke along the habuchi, with kinsuji and sunagashi running through and the nioiguchi clear. The published commentary names the school habit exactly, that from around the monouchi upward the tempered width broadens while the nie turns one step stronger.
The masame runs into the boshi, which finishes yakizume with vigorous hakikake, at times a flame-like form, at times a small ko-maru turnback, and the same straight grain tends to open into ware. Within this shared vocabulary the hands diverge by degree: Sadayoshi forges the coarser grain with the strongest nie, while the slightly later Sadakiyo and Sadaoki read calmer and cleaner, quieter in both ji and ha. To kantei a Hosho blade is to read that pure, total masame, for the distinction from the rest of Yamato-den is drawn there: Tegai, Senjuin, Shikkake and Taima forge a masame-leaning itame, while Hosho commits to the complete straight grain, the most conspicuously individual manner of the five Yamato schools. The tang carries the second tell, filed in higaki, the cross-hatched cypress-fence pattern, and cut off bluntly at the tip, with a darkish iron color the sources count among Yamato work as a point to be appreciated. Workmanship is uniform enough that the smiths are told apart chiefly by their signatures, so that signed and dated Sadayoshi pieces are the most fixed, while the unsigned o-suriage katana given later gold-inlaid or kiritsuke-mei attribution are read as Hosho from manner and era. Of the best hands Sadayoshi stands highest, graded Sai-jo saku in Fujishiro's ranking, with Sadakiyo and Sadaoki close behind on a thin spine of designated work; tanto predominate throughout the school, the hira-zukuri form of slender width and thick kasane showing the old inward uchizori, with rarer tachi, ken and shobu-zukuri blades among the survivors. Provenance for the group runs through the daimyo houses, the Higo Hosokawa and Date families among them, while the shortened katana preserve in their inlay the names of Hon'ami and Umetada appraisers, a school that made its grain its signature. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Sadayoshi貞吉 | 1317-1327 | 10 |
| Sadakiyo貞清 | 1321-1324 | 9 |
| Sadaoki貞興 | 1362-1368 | 7 |
| Sadamitsu貞光 | 1346-1370 | 3 |
| Sadatsugu貞次 | 1455-1457 | 0 |
Yamato in the Nanbokuchō period
When the Southern Court made its capital at Yoshino, in Yamato itself, the province’s schools were at their height: the late Tegai line, Shikkake Norinaga, and the pure masame of Hōshō. Their technique was already spreading across the provinces.
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