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.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch大和大掾正則は江戸初期の越前国の刀工で、慶長十三年紀の刀や元和二年紀の脇差の他、寛永、慶安年紀の作がある。越前の国主は家康の子結城秀康で、尚武の気風が強く、越前康継を筆頭に諸国から刀工が来住し、福居城下で鎚音を響かせた。この大和大掾正則は三条吉則末裔で本国は丹後国という。 正則とその一族肥後大掾正勝の合作(注)になるこの脇差は、元来二尺を僅かに超える操作性の良い刀で、今なお身幅広く重ね厚く、鎬筋が立ち、反りを控えて中鋒の精悍な姿。板目鍛えの地鉄は、太い地景が入って肌目が強く起ち、鎬筋を横断して鎬地にも板目肌が現れ、粒立った地沸が厚く付いて鉄色僅かに黒みを帯び、越前新刀らしい精強な肌合いを呈す。刃文は互の目に尖りこごろの刃を交えて抑揚変化し、焼の谷から沸足が太く入り、細かな金線、砂流しが掛かり、刃中は匂で澄み、刃味の良さを感じさせる。帽子は焼を充分に残して良く沸付き、僅かに掃き掛けて小丸に返る。茎の目釘穴は上から二番目が生ぶの穴で、差表の正則の銘字は鑚当たりが強く、裏銘は肥後大掾正勝の自身銘。正勝には寛永三年紀があり(『日本刀銘鑑』)、正則の近親にして作刀協力者で、遺作の殆どは大和大掾正則との合作。本作は正則一門の研究上、貴重な史料である。 注...正則について、佐藤寒山博士は『康継大鑑』で「各代の判別は目下の資料に於ては不可能」としながら、和の口、原の日が角張って大きいことが初代の特色としている。また、『康継大鑑』所載の正則・正勝合作の脇差について、正勝を正則初代とその弟或いは弟子、もしくは子であろうと解説している。本作はその銘字によく似ている。
NihontoWatchMasanori正則
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Echizen Shinto (Fukui, Echizen); signing Yamato Daijo Fujiwara Masanori · Echizen · around 1596-1615
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Masanori signed his work in full as Yamato Daijo Fujiwara Masanori[[c:1]], and the earliest of his dated blades carries the year Keicho 13 (1608), with later pieces reaching Genna 2 (1616), Kan'ei 1 (1624) and Keian 4 (1651). That span sets him squarely in the first generation of Echizen smiths working at Fukui in the opening decades of the Edo period, active alongside the first and second generations of Echizen Yasutsugu. The published sources transmit, as one view only, that he descended from Sanjo Yoshinori of Yamashiro, that his native province was Miyazu in Tango, and that he afterward moved to Fukui in Echizen. They place him in the immediate orbit of Yasutsugu, perhaps as a pupil, and add that even where that cannot be shown it is difficult to deny that he came under that smith's influence[[c:2]]. The name continued through several more generations after him, but it is this first Masanori, with his long signature and his ubu nakago, whose hand the four designated blades record.
His everyday manner is read first off the jigane. Over an itame that flows and stands a little (板目 on all four blades, hada-dachi on three, with flowing grain entering on two) he lays ji-nie, and on the larger katana chikei (地景) appears; the steel is sometimes blackish. The hamon that runs above it is a midareba built from gunome, large gunome, pointed togariba and yahazu-like (矢筈) heads, with ko-nie attaching, the boshi running midare-komi to a small round turnback. What the published sources return to, however, is not any single feature of the line but the character of the nioiguchi: it tends to sink, somewhat subdued, and they sum the whole up by saying that his is a subdued-nioiguchi blade generally close to the Seki smiths, 「匂口の沈んだ刃で, 一般に関物に近い」. That sinking quality, paired with the flowing standing jigane, is the closest thing he has to a constant tell across the busier work.
Not every blade is busy. On one of the naginata the hand quiets entirely: the kitae is a fine ko-itame with only a slight tendency to stand, ji-nie appearing, and the hamon settles into a suguha (直刃) with ashi and ko-nie, the boshi straight to a ko-maru. The published sources name this suguha alongside the midareba as the other thing he often produces, and they judge the piece refined in its forging, with the ji and ha well ordered throughout, 「地鉄が精美で地刃の出来がよく整った」. It is the disciplined counterpart to the flowing midare manner, and it shows that his Echizen training carried a calmer register as readily as the showier one.
The ceiling of his work lies elsewhere again. His seventh-session designated katana, the oldest of the four on record, is the height of his ambition: a wide blade running to a large point, cut on the omote in single-bevel construction (片切刃) and on the ura in shinogi-zukuri, modeled after the so-called Kiriba-Sadamune (切刃貞宗). Above a standing itame with frequent muneyaki runs a paired so-mon in a large midare (双文大乱) mixed with gunome, ashi and yo entering freely, sunagashi running through, and the ura passing into full tempering (皆焼), the boshi thrusting up with hakikake and nie. A sankoken (三鈷剣) is carved on the omote. Of this blade the published sources write that the workmanship is excellent, very nearly reaching the first-generation Yasutsugu, and that among Masanori's own works there is none to set beside it, 「殆んど初代康継に迫るものがあり, 同作中これに比すべきものがない」. The katakiriba construction is itself a recurring trait of his record rather than a one-off, appearing on a naginata as well, but it is on this katana that the Sadamune model is named and the ambition fully realized.
What distinguishes Masanori within the crowded field of Echizen Shinto is best drawn from his own grounded features rather than by contrast with his neighbors. The flowing, standing itame and the sinking nioiguchi are the marks the published sources tie to his closeness to the Seki tradition, and they are what hold his everyday work together; against them, the katakiriba blades and the Sadamune-modeled showpiece are the reach toward an older and grander manner. The judges note on the twenty-third-session naginata that his own characteristic features show densely in the ji and ha of that piece, 「地刃に正則の特色が濃く」, and on the same blade that the carving is splendid besides. He is, in the school's reckoning, a smith whose typical work sits close to Seki yet who could, on his best day, turn out a katana that approached the founder of his own province's Shinto tradition.
Masanori's designated record stands at four Juyo blades, two katana and two naginata, every one signed in full and on an ubu nakago; his record reaches the Juyo tier and no higher, and none of the four carries a recorded line of provenance or a named owner. The seventh-session katana, the Sadamune-modeled piece the published sources rank without equal in his output, is the work by which he is best known, and the two naginata, one quiet in suguha and one densely his own, round out a small but coherent body. For the collector this is a smith whose work surfaces only occasionally and whose finest blade is a landmark when it appears; the signed Echizen katana and naginata of his hand are not beyond reach in the way a designated cultural property would be, but they come to market rarely, and a piece in which his subdued nioiguchi and flowing standing jigane are clearly present rewards patience more than it does pursuit.
Where Masanori 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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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.
A Hozon-certified blade judged to show notably superior workmanship and a better state of preservation. The bar is higher: re-tempered blades and most unsigned Muromachi/Edo works are excluded.
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.
NBTHK official siteIf, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.