Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch不世出の天才鍛冶、源清麿の覇気みなぎる焼き刃、強靱な鉄鍛えを堪能出来る傑作の長尺刀です。 源清麿は、山浦内蔵助環と言い、文化十年(一八一三)、信濃国赤岩村、現長野県東御(とうみ)市で生まれました。赤岩村は、長野県北西部に位置し、真田氏発祥の地である真田町(現上田市)の隣です。文政十二年(一八二九)、兄真雄と共に上田藩工河村寿隆に入門、天保六年(一八三五)、江戸へ出て、幕臣窪田清音の庇護を受けながら精進、同十三年、長州萩へ赴任、同十五年には信州小諸へ帰郷、弘化二年(一八四五)に江戸へ戻り、以後四谷に住しました。嘉永七年(一八五四)、十一月十四日、自宅にて自刃、享年四十二歳。 同工の銘の変遷は、最初『一貫斎正行』、天保五年には師寿隆より『秀寿』の銘を授かりますが、同年のみで再び『正行』へ戻しており、弘化三年八月からは『源清麿』と銘じています。銘振りとしては、『一貫斎正行』、『山浦正行』、『一貫斎秀寿』、『信濃国正行』、『山浦内蔵助源正行』、『山浦環正行』、『源正行』、『源清麿』などが主です。 年紀の上限は、文政十三年四月、最終年紀は嘉永七年正月日。 作風は、相州伝を得意としましたが、中でも傾倒したのは志津風の作域、新々刀期の作ながら、その出来は本歌に肉薄するため、実際、磨り上げ無銘にされて、古作志津として世に出回っている作も多数あるでしょう。 本作は、大磨り上げ無銘ながら、『山浦清麿』の極めが付された貴重な一振り、寸法二尺五寸一分強、地刃健全、均整の取れた伸びやかなスタイルの優品です。 板目に杢目交じりの地鉄は、総体的に流れ心で上品に肌立ち、地沸厚く付き、地景繁く入り、互の目乱れ主体で、大互の目、小互の目、尖り風の刃を交えた刃は、刃縁荒沸付いて匂い深く明るく冴え、筋状の湯走り掛かり、刃中互の目足入り、金筋、砂流し頻りに掛かり、帽子も烈しく沸付き、先掃き掛け長く返っています。 精良且つ精強な地鉄の鍛錬には驚嘆するものがあり、高低のある互の目乱れ主体の刃は、同工の真骨頂と言える志津写しの典型、絢爛華麗で覇気に満ち溢れており、これが新々刀であることを忘れさせてしまいます。 昭和二十六年の古い登録証は、兵庫県登録の第『七九四』号、付属の外装も、刻みの綺麗な鞘で、特別保存刀装具鑑定書付き、縁は廉乗極めの赤銅獅子、赤銅鐔は吉岡風の海鼠透かし、目貫も金無垢獅子等々、江戸期の大変立派な作、外装のみでも相当な価値です。 清麿刀は、一度ご覧頂ければその凄さが分かります。見る者を魅了する驚くべき地刃の優秀さに加えて、斬れ味、耐久性も備えた究極の一振り。 刀剣史上、千年に一人と言われる不世出の天才鍛冶源清麿、世上、『四谷正宗』と称された男の会心作、これは凄い清麿です。
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Yamaura Kiyomaro (shinshinto, Yotsuya, Edo) · Musashi · around 1839-1854
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 3%
Yamaura Kiyomaro was born Naizosuke Tamaki in Bunka 10 (1813) at Akaiwa village in Komoro, Shinshu, the second son of the rural warrior Nobukaze and the younger brother of the smith Saneo. He learned forging under Kawamura Toshitaka, a swordsmith of the Ueda domain, signing first Masayuki and for a brief interval Hidetoshi, the name his teacher gave him, before returning to Masayuki within the year. Under the patronage of the bakufu retainer and military scholar Kubota Kiyone he went up to Edo, forged for a year at Hagi in Choshu from the eighth month of Tenpo 13, returned to Edo in Koka 2, and in the autumn of Koka 3 settled at Iga-cho in Yotsuya and changed his signature to Kiyomaro. He so excelled in the Soshu tradition that the published sources record he was called the Yotsuya Masamune (四谷正宗), and they place his reputation today as high as that of Kotetsu, calling him without question the foremost master among the shinshinto. He died by his own hand at forty-two in Kaei 7 (1854).
What he aimed at, in the words of the published commentary, was the upper level of the Soshu transmission (相伝上位), and among shinshinto smiths his construction and manner reveal Soshu-den with particular clarity. The temper is a gunome-midare mixed with ko-notare, the ashi entering, the nie thick and gathering coarse in clusters of ara-nie, the whole work, as the NBTHK puts it, filled with a vigorous and commanding spirit[[c:1]]. Long kinsuji and streaming sunagashi run through most of his blades, in both the Masayuki and the Kiyomaro periods, the activity of a ha built on nie; the published sources single out this play of kinsuji and sunagashi in his strong steel as splendid. The boshi is midare-komi, turning pointed with hakikake, at times thrusting up to a point or settling into a small round.
He forges an itame that flows and stands a little, well packed and at times mixed with large open grain, the ji-nie laid thick and in fine particles, the chikei entering frequently and the steel clear. Where the forging tightens into ko-itame the jigane only grows clearer. His mature katana carry an imposing shape, the body wide, the sori toward the point, the chu-kissaki extended or running to a large point with the fukura withered for a sharp impression.
The record now reads in two periods and a favoured register. The early Masayuki work is substantial: some twenty-six blades of the period, signed Masayuki, Minamoto Masayuki, Yamaura Masayuki, Yamaura Tamaki Masayuki and the bare single character Tamaki, dated from Tenpo 4 to Koka 3, among them the Hagi pieces inscribed 於萩城 and 於長門国 and the Komoro pieces inscribed 於信小諸城. The earliest, a Tenpo 4 wakizashi bearing Kubota Kiyone's name, shows that the two men were already in contact during his Matsushiro years; the published sources note that its sunagashi and kinsuji are less abundant than in later work, though the nioiguchi is already bright. These blades carry a closely packed itame that often tends to masame, with a gunome mixed with choji and pointed elements, deep nioi and attaching ko-nie. The mature Kiyomaro manner is the Soshu prime described above. Within it lies the register he prized most: the published sources say that 「志津伝は得意中の得意」, the Shizu transmission his forte of fortes, and they already read it in the early hand, calling a small Tenpo 11 katana a masterpiece of the Shizu manner. That register gathers in the shobu-zukuri and kanmuri-otoshi-zukuri wakizashi he favoured and in the tanto, where a ko-notare base mixed with gunome and choji, with ara-nie in clusters, tempers into a flamboyant midare.
What sets him apart from his shinshinto contemporaries is this Soshu reach. He looked past the Bizen and Kotetsu copying of his day to the Soshu masters, taking Shizu Saburo Kaneuji as his model. His own steel and edge, thick in ji-nie and chikei, vigorous in ara-nie, rich in kinsuji and sunagashi, are what the judges praise: they call one blade the very best among works by the same hand[[c:2]], and say of others that his true ability is there fully revealed[[c:3]]. His Sai-jo saku rating in Fujishiro and the line named for him carry the Soshu-revival manner forward through his pupil Kiyondo and the wider Kiyomaro-den.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, and the Toko Taikan places him high among shinshinto names. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs through the modern designation tiers, one blade at Tokubetsu Juyo and sixty-eight at Juyo, with four blades also recognised before the war as Juyo Bijutsuhin, seventy-three designated works on record, every one of them signed. The published sources estimate his extant work at something over one hundred blades, note that examples in ordinary shinogi-zukuri of standard dimensions are comparatively few, and call a matched daisho dated Kaei 1 without parallel. The recorded blades pass through documented hands: the Iwasaki family and the Seikado Bunko, a retainer of the Matsushiro domain who ordered a daisho, his patron Kubota Kiyone, Makino Suo-no-kami Yasushige, and the Bakumatsu swordsman Chujo Kinnosuke, whose favoured sword one Juyo katana is said to have been. Most are held rather than traded, so a Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo Kiyomaro reaches the market only from time to time and at the very top of it, and a signed example in private hands is among the more notable things a collector of shinshinto could encounter.
Where Kiyomaro 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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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Shinshinto · Musashi
16 pieces on the market now
The Kiyomaro school gathered in the workshops of Yotsuya in Edo around the middle of the nineteenth century, its founder Yamaura Kiyomaro (清麿) born in Bunka 10 (1813) at Akaiwa village in the Komoro district of Shinano, the second son of the country gentry-warrior Yamaura Nobukaze. He learned forging first under the Ueda-domain smith Kawamura Toshitaka, signing his early blades Masayuki, went up to Edo in Tenpo 6 (1835) under the patronage of the military scholar Kubota Kiyone, and in the autumn of Koka 3 (1846) settled at Iga-cho in Yotsuya and changed his signature to Kiyomaro; he died by his own hand at forty-two in Kaei 7 (1854). Around him moved his elder brother Yamaura Masao (真雄/正雄), who took the same instruction from Toshitaka and walked the same course from choji into Soshu-den, and the pupils who entered the Yotsuya forge in its final years: Kurihara Nobuhide (信秀), a mirror-maker from Sanjo in Echigo whom the published sources place nearest the master's hand; Saito Kiyondo (清人) of Dewa, who afterward settled his teacher's sword debts and carried the manner into early Meiji; and the wider circle of associates and patrons through which the line passed. The shared vocabulary of the school is a powerful Soshu-revival manner. Over an itame that flows and stands a little, well packed and at times opening into mokume and o-itame, the smiths lay thick ji-nie with frequent chikei, the steel clear and without utsuri, for this is a late hand reaching back five centuries to Sagami rather than a Bizen revival. The temper is an o-midare or gunome-midare mixed with ko-notare, the ashi and yo entering, the nie thick and gathering coarse in clusters of ara-nie, with long kinsuji and streaming sunagashi running through nearly every blade; the boshi answers in a midare-komi turning pointed with hakikake. A Bizen-leaning side survives from the early years in the residual choji that shades into the mature work. Within this common ground the hands diverge. Kiyomaro's is read as the overwhelming one, his Soshu-den reaching the upper transmission with the Shizu vein as his forte of fortes, the NBTHK calling his work 「覇気に満ちている」, filled with commanding spirit.
Masao's grounded forging is candidly weighed against his brother's, the texts noting that his chikei, sunagashi, and kinsuji run fewer and the quality does not reach Kiyomaro's level. Nobuhide is named the closest approach to the master and is alone in the school for his carving, a mirror-maker's hand that set kurikara, dragons, and bonji into blades the others left plain. Kiyondo holds the round-headed gunome-midare at full strength and adds a manner of his own, a bright suguha aligned with the Yamato tradition that Kiyomaro never worked. To kantei the school, read first the imposing shape particular to the Yamaura line: a wide body with little taper, the sori toward the point, a chu-kissaki extended or run to an o-kissaki whose fukura is allowed to wither for a sharp impression, often a shobu-zukuri or kanmuri-otoshi wakizashi. Read then the nie, thick in ji and ha, the chikei and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi that mark the force of the steel rather than any borrowed pattern. Carving narrows the field to Nobuhide; a Yamato suguha narrows it to Kiyondo. Kiyomaro stands at the head of the line, ranked by the published sources as high as Kotetsu and named without question the leading master among the shinshinto, the smith called the Yotsuya Masamune (四谷正宗). His extant work is scarce and closely held, passing through documented hands such as the Iwasaki family and the Seikado Bunko, and reaches the market only from time to time and at the very top of it. The pupils and the elder brother offer the more attainable face of the circle, signed and dated blades that come to a collector with patience; a signed example of any of these hands is a document of the moment when Soshu was reborn in Edo. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kiyomaro清麿 | 1839-1854 | 73 |
| Nobuhide信秀 | 1857-1867 | 34 |
| Kiyondo清人 | 1848-1868 | 10 |
| Masao真雄 | 1844-1866 | 7 |
| Masanao正直 | 1865-1868 | 3 |
Bakumatsu: the last war market
Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
A blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,348 (about 1 in 202) have ever attained Jūyō.
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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