The divided-courts war impoverished the court society that had sustained Kyōto’s most refined work. With the last Rai masters the classic line effectively closed, while Hasebe and Nobukuni carried the new Sōshū manner into the capital.
It’s here, it’s here—a precious tantō by the Nanbokucho period Kyo Nobukuni has appeared. Among the disciples of Sadamune (himself a disciple of Masamune), the three most outstanding swordsmiths—Yamashiro Nobukuni, Bizen Motoshige, and Tanshu Hojo-ji Kunimitsu—are known as the Sadamune Santetsu. The first generation Kyo Yamashiro Nobukuni is said to be the grandson of Ryokai (the son of Rai Kunitoshi), and this third generation Kyo Nobukuni (Saemon-no-jo) is a master smith from the Nanbokucho to early Muromachi period, as works dated to Shitoku 4 (1387, 639 years ago) exist. The sugata of this tantō features a shin-no-mune, a wide moto-mihaba, and a sunnobi-style hira-zukuri shape that presents a magnificent and powerful tantō form. The jigane is itame-hada mixed with moku, displaying jinie and chikei. The horimono, a specialty of Nobukuni, consists of a bo-hi with a soe-hi near the mune, carved with masterful skill. The hamon is a suguha style with a bright nioikuchi and konie, exhibiting kinsuji within the blade, making it elegant and superb. The koshirae is also wonderful; it is an aikuchi-koshirae with a kuro-ro-saya, featuring menuki and a kozuka made of shakudo-ji with auspicious crane motifs, adding further splendor to this Nobukuni tantō. On this occasion, an elderly connoisseur told us, "I have grown old; in the past, a tantō by Kyo Yamashiro Nobukuni was so expensive I couldn't reach it, but I pushed myself to purchase it for a high price. I have enjoyed it sufficiently until now, so please pass it on to someone who will cherish it at an affordable price." Having received it with such a request, we are offering it at a special bargain price. Please enjoy this rare, masterpiece tantō by Kyo Yamashiro Nobukuni, the likes of which rarely appear on the market.
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Nobukuni (Yamashiro, Ryōkai lineage) · Yamashiro · around 1383-1392
Tōken Taikan top 14%
1 piece on the market now
Nobukuni of the late Nanbokuchō is the second generation of the Yamashiro Nobukuni line in the NBTHK's own numbering, the smith whose dated work carries the Eitoku, Shitoku and Meitoku years. The published sources set out the line plainly: a first generation of the Enbun and Jōji years, a Ryōkai-descended Kyō smith who, they write, "is said to have studied under Sadamune of Sagami as well"[[c:1]]; after him, in the late Nanbokuchō, "the Nobukuni of the next generation"[[c:2]]; and in the early Muromachi the Ōei Nobukuni, Saemon-no-jō and Shikibu-no-jō. The Meikan's older Kenmu founder is set aside because no work of that date survives. Several mumei blades in this record are appraised in exactly that position, as "a Nobukuni standing between the mid-Nanbokuchō first generation and the Ōei Nobukuni"[[c:3]].
He works in three manners. Two he carries forward from the first generation. The first is a refined suguha of ko-nie, the nioiguchi tight and clear, with fine hotsure and a faint nijūba, most at home on the tantō, ko-wakizashi and ken. On a tantō dated Shitoku 2 the published sources call it an elegant straight temper that "faithfully inherits the manner of the Rai ancestors"[[c:4]], and a tachi dated Meitoku 1 is read the same way. The second, and the one most often met in his corpus, is a ko-notare mixed with gunome, laid thickly in nie, with sunagashi, kinsuji and conspicuous yubashiri. The sources name the two together, as a straight temper in the Kyō tradition and a notare inheriting the manner of Sadamune.
The third manner is his own, and it arrives with the tachi, which his generation makes in number. It is a lively gunome-based midare mixing ko-notare, togariba and chōji-like heads, and its tell is named again and again: pairs of gunome "linked by a low, small notare"[[c:5]], taking on a yahazu, arrow-notch, profile. A tachi dated Eitoku is described as showing "gunome set two side by side", a work that "well shows the character of the Nobukuni of this period"[[c:6]]. On the most animated blades muneyaki, tobiyaki and yubashiri enter, and the bōshi runs midare-komi with hakikake.
Under every temper the jigane is an itame that stands and flows, at times with masame-gokoro, with thick ji-nie and frequent chikei, the trace of the Sōshū study his line inherits. The hereditary carving goes with it. Bonji, kurikara, suken, gomabashi and the invocation of Hachiman Daibosatsu recur across the corpus, and the published sources call this "carving that could be called the family art, and skilful as one would expect"[[c:7]]. A small habit of the signature belongs to this generation as well: the date is cut low on the tang, well below the smith's name, which the sources describe as "seemingly a habit of the Nobukuni of this period"[[c:8]].
The published sources keep him distinct on both sides. Against the first generation, the dated late-Nanbokuchō tachi and naginata are prized as reference material, since the founder's signed work survives only as tantō and ko-wakizashi. Against the Ōei Nobukuni, they note that the late-Nanbokuchō hand breaks the midare down in a more cursive manner, and they use this point to separate the generations. They are also candid that the name was shared: "there appear to have been several smiths of the same signature in the Nanbokuchō period as well"[[c:9]]. A Meitoku 3 tachi signed Genzaemon-no-jō Nobukuni is by a different hand from the two-character Nobukuni of the same year.
His record holds two Tokubetsu Jūyō and twenty-nine Jūyō, thirty-one blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with a prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin and Hon'ami Kōchū origami attached to several. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. Of recorded whereabouts, a tantō is held in the Samurai Art Museum in Berlin, and provenance runs to the Hisamatsu Matsudaira family, the Ōta collection and, for one blade, the Imperial Family. None of his work is locked away as designated patrimony, so a signed example does pass into private hands from time to time; it comes only seldom, and a dated, carved tachi of the late-Nanbokuchō Nobukuni is a landmark when it does.
Where Nobukuni 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
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
33 pieces on the market now
Few Kyoto houses bridged two traditions as deliberately as Nobukuni (信国), the Yamashiro-den lineage whose work runs from the Nanbokucho period through Muromachi and on, in a western branch, into the shinto age. The first generation, the smith the NBTHK counts as shodai, is the master of the Enbun, Koan and Joji years; the older registers placed a founding Nobukuni back in the Kenmu era, but the published sources set that legend aside, since no work survives so early and the style of the oldest dated blades connects directly with that of Sadamune. Two inheritances meet in him. By blood he belongs to the Ryokai line, recorded as son or grandson of Ryo Hisanobu and therefore of Rai descent; by training he is said to have studied under Soshu Sadamune, counted among the Sadamune Santetsu, the three brilliant pupils. The name then passed on: a change-of-generation Nobukuni with Eitoku, Shitoku and Meitoku dates stands at the close of Nanbokucho, and in early Muromachi come the so-called Oei Nobukuni, Saemon-no-jo and Shikibu-no-jo, conventionally the third generation. The published commentary keeps these hands apart and notes that several smiths of the same signature appear within the Nanbokucho period alone. Through Muromachi the line moved to Buzen and then Chikuzen, where it served the Kuroda house of Fukuoka as retained smiths and flourished as the Chikuzen Nobukuni group of Yoshisada, Yoshimasa, Yoshitsugu, Yoshikane and Shigekane. A single steel underlies the whole school. The jigane is an itame mixed with mokume that flows toward the ha and stands into masame, with thick ji-nie and chikei entering frequently; on the finer-forged pieces a streak-like nie-utsuri rises, and that masame-tinged surface is read as the visible token of the Ryokai pedigree.
Over it the temper divides into the manners the sources name together: a suguha expressing the Kyoto tradition, refined in ko-nie with fine hotsure and a niju-ba tendency, carried on tanto and ko-wakizashi; and a ko-notare mixed with gunome inheriting the Sadamune style, laid thick in nie, with kinsuji, sunagashi, hotsure and conspicuous yubashiri, on the most flamboyant pieces stringing into a two-tiered ha. From the late Nanbokucho succession into the Oei generation a third range enters, a gunome-led midare whose tell is paired gunome linked across the valleys by a low ko-notare into a yahazu, arrow-notch, profile, with muneyaki, tobiyaki and niju-ba on the liveliest blades. Above all stands the carving the sources call the house art, the horimono of bonji, kurikara, suken, gomabashi, sanko-ken and the invocation of Hachiman Daibosatsu, often layered one over another in kasanebori; few smiths of the age are so consistently identified by what they carved. The Chikuzen branch carried the masame-leaning itame forward and added a choji-midare with midare-utsuri, Yoshikane reaching toward Soshu-den with deep nioi and thick nie, Shigekane ranked highest in skill within his group and noted as a copyist of meibutsu who emulated Fudo Kuniyuki at the Hama Palace. To kantei Nobukuni is to read the Kyoto traces that part him from Sadamune: the nie-utsuri, the niju-ba, and the hada that drifts into masame along the ha. Within the long succession the shodai remains the touchstone, his dated work the standard against which unsigned blades and generation questions are resolved, the reversed left-form kuni marking the Oei Saemon-no-jo, the yahazu the daigawari hand. The best members rank Jo-jo saku under Fujishiro, and the carving reputation is the constant thread, distinguishing these blades from the plainer utilitarian grooving of contemporary Bizen. Provenance runs through the great houses: the Kuroda wakizashi once carried by Kuroda Nagamasa, a Hongan-ji meibutsu held to have been cherished by Rennyo Shonin, the signed Arao Nobukuni descended in the Asano of Geishu, pieces in the Sanada, Tosa Yamauchi and Tamura families, and a tachi bestowed on the Owari Tokugawa. Examples rest today in the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, shrines such as Atsuta and Ise, and long-held private collections, with the Chikuzen smiths' shogunal-command pieces preserving the historical episodes that produced them. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Nobukuni信國 | 1356-1368 | 70 |
| Nobukuni信國 | 1383-1392 | 33 |
| Nobukuni信國 | 1394-1428 | 44 |
| Yoshikane吉包 | 1661-1686 | 7 |
| Masanobu正信 | 1356-1361 | 4 |
Yamashiro in the Nanbokuchō period
The divided-courts war impoverished the court society that had sustained Kyōto’s most refined work. With the last Rai masters the classic line effectively closed, while Hasebe and Nobukuni carried the new Sōshū manner into the capital.
This work carries older NBTHK “Kichō”-era papers, which the NBTHK no longer issues and now regards as unreliable. To confirm the attribution, submission to an official Japanese examination body (such as the NBTHK or NTHK) for modern certification could be considered.
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