Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch肥前の國廣は橋本六郎左衛門と称し、廣貞(吉家)‐國廣‐兼廣と続いた忠吉門下の一人。 この平造脇差は戦国時代末期から江戸初期にかけての特徴的な、重ねが厚く身幅広く、わずかに先反りの付いた頑強な造り込みで、茎仕立ても忠吉に良く似ている。小板目鍛えの地鉄は小杢を交えて密に詰み、細かな地沸が付き、刃文を写したような淡い沸映りが立って地中に気の動きを感じさせる。総体が江戸初期の肥前の様相を呈しており、忠吉一門の高い技術を保持したことが判る。刃文は彫刻を施すため充分に考慮した細直刃で、刃の構成線に沿ってふくら辺りがわずかに小模様となり小丸に返る。這龍の表裏重ね彫は、彫口が深く、鱗が鋭く起ち、宙を掻く爪も鋭く、肩や脚部に力が籠り、胴体が丸みを帯びてしかも躍動的。わずかに当たりがあるも研ぎ減りが少なく、彫物の健全さも魅力となっている。肥前国には、忠吉と共に埋忠明壽から彫刻を学んだ彫物師がおり、肥前刀の特質の一つともなっている。その美観が示された作品である。 附されている拵は、刀の製作された桃山文化の時代を彷彿とさせる、洒落た印象ながら武骨な風合いを漂わせる造り込み。薄手に仕立てた鞘の表面を三厘ほどの幅の細かな刻みに仕立てて黒漆で仕上げ、大きく角張った龍田川文高彫金銀布目象嵌の鐺金具を備えている。栗形は素銅地高彫金色絵の瓢箪図。赤銅魚子地高彫金銀色絵の綺麗な秋草図小柄を備えている。鐔は鉄地に桜花文銀象嵌。縁頭も龍田川図で、鉄地と銀地昼夜の仕立て。光沢のある堅木柄に巴紋の銀目貫を出目貫としており、柄形も引き締まって握り易く、いざという場合の用を全うする構成となっている。
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Shinto · Hizen · around 1644-1648
Fujishiro Chu-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 76%
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Shinto · Hizen
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The Hizen school began with a single domain commission. In Keicho 1 (1596) the Nabeshima of Hizen ordered Hashimoto Shinzaemon, the smith who would sign Tadayoshi, up to Kyoto with the carver Munenaga; there he entered the gate of Umetada Myoju and studied forging while Munenaga learned the chisel. The two returned to the province in Keicho 3 (1598), and Tadayoshi settled in the castle town below Saga, where under the domain's patronage the line grew into the dominant sword-making house of Kyushu. His own work runs from Keicho 5 (1600) to his death in Kan'ei 9 (1632); in Genna 10 (1624) he received the court title Musashi Daijo, changed his name to Tadahiro, and shifted his clan name from Minamoto to Fujiwara, so that the late Musashi Daijo blades are the founder under a second name. From him the house became a true generational institution: his son the second-generation Omi Daijo Tadahiro carried it forward as its most prolific hand, the third-generation Mutsu no Kami Tadayoshi returned its highest finish, and a Tosa no Kami branch took the founder's signature when he set it aside. Around this main line grew a circle of disciples and collateral hands, the waki-Hizen or Soba-Hizen smiths, several of them, like Yoshiie and Hironori, working as daisaku substitute makers whose own signed pieces are therefore scarce. The school's signature is its steel. Over a ko-itame forged so tightly it shows no slackness, fine ji-nie gathers in minute particles until the surface takes on the rice-bran konuka-hada (also written komenuka-hada) that no other school produces, fine chikei entering throughout and the ji notably clear and bright.
The orthodox temper laid upon it is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha, sometimes tinged with a shallow notare and ko-gunome, the nioiguchi deep with finely clustered ko-nie and tightened to a bright clarity, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru. The founder aimed this suguha toward the Rai school yet departed from it, his nioiguchi tighter and his forging carrying more vigor; the third generation refined it to what the published sources call the strongest and most precise hand of the first three generations. Against that calm register the house also worked a showier one, the Hizen choji-midare mixing gunome, long ashi, kinsuji and sunagashi, a manner the published sources already find more often in the founder's late Musashi Daijo work than in his Tadayoshi years, and one the second generation made his own. The branches pushed further from the suguha standard: Tadakuni of the Ogi domain ran sunagashi more conspicuously than any other Hizen hand and reached toward old Ichimonji in his o-choji; Masahiro and Yukihiro favored a flamboyant long-ashi choji over the calm main line; and the Iyo no Jo Munetsugu line worked apart in the Soshu-den, building a midareba on notare with a pointed togariba and a jihada that tends to stand and tone slightly blackish. A collector seeks Hizen-to first for that steel, and reads it the same way the appraiser does: a bright suguha lying over a clear, tight konuka-hada identifies the school before the signature is consulted, and the quiet ko-maru boshi on the ura-signed tang confirms the main-line practice. Generation and branch are then told within that frame, the third generation's powerful sugata recalling not his father but his grandfather, the waki-Hizen hands set apart by their irregular temper, their sujikai file marks and a sashi-ura signature, the Munetsugu line by its Soshu togari. The main line, made in real numbers across so long a span, reaches the market more readily than any Kamakura master, so a papered example is within reach of a patient collector, while the founder's own work and the finest konuka-suguha of the third generation come to open hands only from time to time. Provenance runs back through the house the school served, blades recorded to Nabeshima Katsushige and Nabeshima Naomoto and passing onward to the Owari Tokugawa, the Satake and the Imperial families; documentary inscriptions sharpen the picture further, a Myoju soemei attesting the founder's discipleship, Umetada carving adding flowers to brocade on his late blades, and the gold-inlaid cutting tests of Yamano Kanjuro and Yamano Ka'emon, rare on Hizen work, naming the edge as well as the hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1596-1632 | 155 |
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1660-1686 | 61 |
| Tadahiro忠廣 | 1633-1693 | 133 |
| Masahiro正廣 | 1624-1655 | 30 |
| Tadakuni忠國 | 1648-1652 | 32 |
Hizen: a domain enterprise
Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
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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