NihontoWatch正幸は、享保十八年、二代伊地知正良の子として生まれ、父の跡を継いで三代正良を襲名、寛政元年に伯耆守を受領した際に、正良銘を嫡子へ譲り、正幸と改めました。 年紀作に見る活躍期は、明和初年(一七六四~七二)から文化末年(一八〇四~一八)頃まで、文政元年に八十六歳で没。奥元平と共に新々刀薩摩鍛冶の双璧を成す名工です。 同工の作は、切っ先延び心で、身幅重ねのガシッとした頑丈な造り込みのものが多く、刃文は、湾れに互の目、尖り風の刃を交えて、匂い深く、荒沸付き、金筋、砂流し掛かるなど、美濃相州伝とも言うべき、志津風の作風を得意としています。 銘は『薩州住正良』、『薩摩官工平正良』、『伯耆守平朝臣正幸』などと切ります。 本作は、寛政十一年(一七九九)、同工六十七歳の頃の作、 寸法二尺三寸八分弱、元先身幅しっかりとした雄壮なスタイルで、地刃もすこぶる健全です。 地沸を微塵に厚く敷いた地鉄は、薩摩刀特有の黒い地景風の変わり鉄を交え、所々うねるように大模様となり、互の目乱れ主体の刃文は、刃縁荒沸付いて匂い一際深く明るく冴え、刃中互の目足入り、金筋、砂流しが掛かるなど、銘を見ずとも薩摩新々刀と分かる出来です。 新々刀期に於ける、薩摩刀の魅力が存分に示された伯耆守正幸の会心作です。
NihontoWatchOffered by Samurai Nippon
This piece has sold
Get an email when a new Satsuma Masayuki piece hits the market.
Ijichi (Satsuma), shinshinto · Satsuma · around 1772-1817
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 23%
6 pieces on the market now
Hoki no Kami Masayuki was a smith of the Ijichi house, the Satsuma domain smiths, the son of the second-generation Masayoshi, born in Kyoho 18 (1733). He succeeded as the third generation and signed Masayoshi (正良), with works from about the Horeki era. In Kansei 1 (1789), in the same year that his townsman Oku Motohira became Yamato no Kami, he received the title Hoki no Kami and changed his name to Masayuki. He worked into great old age, many late blades carrying his age in the signature, and died in Bunsei 1 or 2 (1818 to 1819) at eighty-six or eighty-seven. The published sources place him by one recurring pairing: with Oku Motohira he is one of the "twin pillars of Satsuma shinshinto"[[c:1]], and they add that he surpassed his forebears in skill and early won the repute of a pupil who outshone his teacher.
His characteristic hand is a broad, long, robust katana. The mihaba is wide, the kasane thick and the kissaki extended. Over it he tempers a ko-notare or shallow notare mixed with gunome, setting in pointed teeth, the nioi deep and the nie somewhat coarse, with sunagashi and kinsuji. The published sources call this his favoured manner and record that "he himself called it Soshu-den"[[c:2]]. Elsewhere they read it more exactly: he "excels in work modelled on Soshu-den, and above all on Shizu"[[c:3]]. The kinsuji and nie-suji that run long through his ha are the Satsuma lines known as imozuru, the yam-vine.
The jigane beneath is a well-forged itame, often mixed with mokume and flowing grain, with thick ji-nie and chikei, at times a conspicuous o-itame. The boshi runs in midare-komi or straight, turning back in ko-maru or o-maru, swept with hakikake and at times breaking into nie-kuzure. The nakago is almost always ubu, narrowing to a sword-shaped or iriyama-gata tip, with katte-agari file marks and a bold long signature cut with a thick chisel. The published sources say he carves a bo-hi on most of his blades, tying it to their wide mihaba and thick kasane, and they note one katana left without a groove because its width is comparatively standard.
The signature divides his record, but not his manner. Twelve of his thirty-six designated blades are signed Masayoshi, dated from Meiwa 7 to the second month of Kansei 1, and the published sources call several of them typical and among his best. The robust body and the deep-nioi, coarse-nie temper are already present. What marks some early pieces is the base of the temper, a suguha-cho or broad suguha-cho line with a shallow notare, mixed with ko-gunome and pointed teeth, the kinsuji and nie-suji winding through the ha. The sources say this manner is often seen in his Meiwa and An'ei work and appears "modelled on the old works of Go and on Inoue Shinkai"[[c:4]]. One Tenmei 5 katana, 86.5 cm long and heavy in the hand, they judge without parallel among his works and call "the great work of Hoki no Kami Masayuki's life and its crowning piece"[[c:5]].
His inscriptions run beyond the date. One katana of Kansei 12 (1800) carries a Koshin-faith text, that a sword forged in a year when the Koshin day falls seven times secures lasting martial fortune, and the published sources call its province signature unusual. Others bear the invocation "Namu Hachiman Daibosatsu"[[c:6]] on the tang. Within his province he is read beside Motohira, the Oku house and the Ijichi house raised to their court titles in the same year. His own traits set him apart: the broad, robust sugata, the pointed teeth in a deep-nioi gunome, the coarse nie and the running imozuru. The sources measure refinement against that vine as well, praising one katana because "the yam-vine kinsuji and nie-suji"[[c:7]] do not appear on it, which lends it higher dignity.
For the collector he is one of the leading names of late Satsuma, and Fujishiro grades him Jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. His record on the modern designation tiers runs through the Juyo rank, where thirty-six of his works are held, all signed. Two carry distinguished local provenance. One katana descended in the Shimazu house, the lords of Satsuma, kept as a reserve sword of Tsurumaru castle. Another came down in the Kabayama family, a Shimazu branch, with a Satsuma koshirae whose fuchi-kashira and kojiri are by Masayuki's own hand. Most designated blades are held rather than traded, and a fine signed Masayuki in his Soshu-den manner comes to market only from time to time and with patience. He is more findable than the locked heritage of the older traditions, but a dated, age-inscribed katana in his full manner remains a substantial acquisition.
Where Masayuki 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Yamato-den · Satsuma
32 pieces on the market now
The Satsuma school gathered the smiths of southern Kyushu under the patronage of the Shimazu, the daimyo house of Satsuma and Osumi, and the published sources read its history in two distinct flowerings rather than one continuous line. Its shinto fountainhead is Izu no Kami Masafusa, a son of the Mino smith Ujifusa who moved to Kagoshima and carried a strongly nie-laden hand into the province; the NBTHK names him the origin of Satsuma forging. From that root the early school rose to its summit in the pair the judges return to whenever they place it, Mondo-no-Sho Masakiyo and Ippei Yasuyo, the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto. Both were summoned in Kyoho 6 (1721) by the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to forge in Edo and were granted the single-leaf hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa for their tangs, and the Ippei line continued through Yasuyo's adopted heir Yasuari. A century later a second summit formed in the shinshinto twin pillars, Oku Yamato no Kami Motohira of the Oku house and Hoki no Kami Masayuki of the Ijichi house, raised to their court titles in the same year of Kansei 1 (1789); Masayuki's name had begun as Masayoshi, and his pupil Masakage carried the manner into the Bunka and Bunsei years. The training the members record runs back through the Naminohira and Yamato roots of the early Ippei smiths, but the working idiom the school is known by is its own. That idiom is a Soshu-den read in coarse nie rather than in clove-flower, and the members describe it in a shared vocabulary. The body is broad in mihaba, thick in kasane, full in hiraniku and stoutly built, the imposing Satsuma sugata. Over a well-forged itame, often a tight ko-itame turning toward nagare or masame and carrying thick ji-nie and dark chikei, the smiths temper a notare-toned gunome-midare into which they set pointed togariba, deep in nioi with thick nie and coarse ara-nie mixed through. The feature the commentary names most often is what streams within that temper, the long kinsuji, nie-suji and sunagashi the sources call imozuru, the yam-vine of the province, vine-like nie-lines running unbroken through the ha.
The jigane takes a markedly blackish cast against which the bright nioiguchi and coarse nie stand out, and the boshi runs in midare-komi or straight, swept with hakikake and on the most vigorous work flaring to a flame-like kaen. Within this one settled manner the members divide. Masakiyo handled the varied Shizu-style midare, his yubashiri gathering at the crests of the temper into a nijuba-like, antique appearance, where Yasuyo tempered a calmer notare-toned suguha whose strength lay in the depth of its nioi and the length of its imozuru; Motohira and Masayuki carried the flamboyant gunome with its kaen boshi into the later period, while a small number of blades lean toward masame and recall the Yamato Hosho grain that the early training laid down. To kantei Satsuma work, the judges read three grounded marks together: the pointed togariba riding a notare base, the deep coarse nie with its running imozuru, and the dark, chikei-laden standing jigane, completed by the swept hakikake or kaen boshi and the broad heavy body. The tang offers further constants, almost always ubu with a bold thick-chiseled signature that frequently carries the smith's age, Motohira's funagata-narrowed kengyo point and Masayuki's bo-hi among them. Among the members the standing is high: Masakiyo and Yasuyo hold the early summit, while Motohira and Masayuki lead the shinshinto generation, the latter's pupil Masakage judged to have inherited the master's hand with notable refinement. The cutting reputation of the province, tied to its Jigen-ryu martial tradition, runs through the bold robust construction the sources call decisive in the hand. The provenance is grand for a domain school: blades presented by the Shimazu house upward to the shogun Yoshimune and to Konoe Iehisa, Minister of the Left, who returned silver and poems to the smiths, with pieces descending through the Tokugawa, the Imperial family and Shimazu branch houses such as the Kabayama. Such blades are held in long-established collections rather than traded, and a signed Satsuma work in its full vigorous Soshu-den comes to a collector only with patience. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yasuyo安代 | 1716-1736 | 18 |
| Motohira元平 | 1778-1789 | 39 |
| Masayuki正幸 | 1772-1817 | 36 |
| Masakiyo正清 | 1714-1736 | 26 |
| Yasuari安在 | 1744-1748 | 4 |
The Shinshintō revival
Around 1800 Suishinshi Masahide argued in his writings that the craft must return to the old masters’ methods: the fukkotō revival. His greatest successor Naotane worked convincingly in Bizen and Sōshū manners that had been dead for centuries.
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 siteFor one-of-a-kind items such as swords, sword fittings and antiques, other customers may be waiting for the item, so please contact us about a return within 3 days of its arrival and ship it back within 8 days. Refunds are made on the day the returned item arrives.