Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
This is a magnificent katana by Awataguchi Kunikiyo, a master smith from the early Kamakura period and one of the six Awataguchi brothers. It features a wide mihaba, deep sori, and a graceful koshizori shape. The blade exhibits an ultimate nashiji-hada with fine chikei, a bright nioiguchi, and abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, showcasing the distinctive characteristics of the Awataguchi school. It is designated as a Juyo Token by the NBTHK.
NihontoWatchmei · Awataguchi · Kamakura · nagasa 72.8cm · sori 2.3cm
Awataguchi (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1201-1204
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 2%
Kunikiyo was the fourth of the six brother-masters of the early Awataguchi school in Yamashiro, working in the opening years of the Kamakura period. The published sources set him in that celebrated company: a son of Kuniie, his elder brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu and his younger brothers Arikuni and Kunitsuna, the six of whom all served as appointed swordsmiths to the Retired Emperor Go-Toba. Of his own work very little survives in signature. One Jūyō entry states plainly that 'extant signed pieces are few, numbering only two'[[c:1]], so his name is carried today chiefly by a small group of ō-suriage, mumei katana judged to him, alongside the rare signed tachi.
His hand is the bright, quiet manner of early Awataguchi. The jigane is a closely forged ko-itame, in places running a little or mixed with larger grain, carrying abundant ji-nie and, on the finest blade, frequent chikei; the published sources call the steel notably bright, with a faint midare-utsuri standing in places. Over that jigane he sets not the flamboyant chōji of Bizen but a suguha-toned ko-midare, shallowly notare and worked with ko-chōji, ko-gunome and gunome, ashi entering, the nioiguchi deep and bright, nie well adhered, with fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through. The bōshi goes straight to a ko-maru or ō-maru and returns.
Within that suguha-based edge the judges single out one piece of scenery: patches of yubashiri toward the monouchi that gather into a nijūba-like double line, a feature the published commentary notes on more than one of the ō-suriage blades. It is a restrained tell, in keeping with a smith whose whole character is calm rather than showy.
The published sources read Kunikiyo closest to his brother Kuniyasu. On the signed tachi transmitted in the Unshū Matsudaira house, the commentary finds the temper 'on the whole resembling Kuniyasu'[[c:2]]; on one of the ō-suriage katana the tightly packed intervals of the midare and an urumi tendency of the nioiguchi are held to share 'a thread of affinity with Kuniyasu'[[c:3]]. It is exactly this affinity, set on the characteristic bright Awataguchi ko-itame, that carries the attribution where the signature is gone, and the sources affirm such blades as work that 'at a glance can be appraised as Awataguchi of the early Kamakura'[[c:4]]. He stands within the early Awataguchi mainstream, before the school's later flowering, the quiet suguha-toned ko-midare and the urumi nioiguchi the marks of the family hand.
For the collector Kunikiyo is a rare early Awataguchi name, graded sai-jō saku by the Fujishiro appraisers. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one work designated Important Cultural Property, the Aoyama-family signed tachi, together with the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin signed tachi from the Unshū Matsudaira house, and a small group of ō-suriage mumei katana reaching the Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō tiers, only five works carrying an official designation in all. The Tokubetsu Jūyō katana descended through the Sakai house of Himeji, and the published sources call it a superior blade whose 'glittering nie within the temper is especially magnificent'[[c:5]]; among recorded whereabouts a blade is held by the Fukuyama Art Museum, and his provenance runs through old daimyō and imperial collections. With so few works on record and most of them long held, a signed Kunikiyo comes to light only rarely, and a privately held example of either his signed tachi or his attributed katana is among the more notable things a collector of early Yamashiro could hope to encounter.
Where Kunikiyo 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.
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
4 pieces on the market now
The steel is the first thing one learns to read in Awataguchi work: a ko-itame kneaded so tight that the surface takes on the pear-skin sheen the texts name nashiji-hada, the ji-nie dusted over it fine and even, slender chikei threading through, the whole carrying a moist luster (潤い) and a clarity that recurs in notice after notice. This is the steel of the early Yamashiro tradition at its summit. The forge stood at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Kyoto, on the highway running toward Omi, and a community of smiths already worked there by the early Kamakura period; the tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari attests their presence, so this is a house with a documented place in the literature of its own century. The school is conventionally founded on the six brothers, Kunitomo the eldest, then Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, sons of the founder Kunika (also given as Kuniie). Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu were summoned as goban-kaji to forge on rotation at the cloistered court of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and Hisakuni is even transmitted as a teacher to the sovereign; that imperial patronage is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. What binds the house across four generations is restraint married to refinement. Over the nashiji-hada the brothers set a calm suguha leaning into a shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji, the nioiguchi tight and bright, ko-ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi running within the ha; the boshi turns in a refined ko-maru that very often sweeps with hakikake. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, an edge whose interest lies in the activity within rather than the height of the pattern. Within that shared vocabulary the members are told apart by habit. Kunitomo and Kuniyasu hold to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation, their nioiguchi clouding into urumi; Kuniyasu's linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school.
Kunitsuna is the divergence, a robust o-itame standing prominently over thick ji-nie, with conspicuously strong ha-nie that leans toward the Sagami manner about to be born. The later course runs through Norikuni, the bridge generation, into the tanto age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, where the temper settles into bright suguha in fine ko-nie. Kuniyoshi's tell is the nijuba, the doubled (at times trebled) line along the ha; Yoshimitsu's is the linear kuisagari dropping of nie into the ji beneath the boshi, his suguha a narrow hoso-suguha under a bright nioiguchi. For the collector the school divides into work that can be studied and work that can be owned. Its summit, Toshiro Yoshimitsu, crowns the close of the line; paired with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha, and ranked in the Edo period with Masamune and Go among the Three Great Works under Heaven, he is a smith met in the great collections rather than possessed, his signed tanto the standard against which every attribution is measured. His teacher Kuniyoshi, whose nashiji-hada the texts name outright, is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach, his o-suriage mumei katana anchored on the doubled line. The house also seeded the eastern tradition: Kunitsuna's transmitted descent runs on to Shintogo Kunimitsu, the de facto founder of Soshu, whose own refined nashiji steel passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it, and from whose quiet nie-laden suguha Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige drew the nie-midare of the mature tradition. The refined nie-suguha the brothers fixed was likewise the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, the two hands sitting so close in the eye that gold-inlaid Rai attributions appear on blades grouped with Hisakuni. To kantei an Awataguchi blade is to read the pear-skin steel first, then the quiet nie-laden suguha, then the swept boshi, and to know which brother or pupil the habits name; to acquire one, of any generation, is among the scarcest encounters early Yamashiro affords. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshimitsu吉光 | 1259-1260 | 44 |
| Kuniyoshi國吉 | 1275-1278 | 51 |
| Kunitsuna國綱 | 1240-1264 | 18 |
| Hisakuni久國 | 1190-1199 | 21 |
| Norikuni則國 | 1222-1224 | 15 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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 12,307 (about 1 in 203) 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.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
This is a magnificent katana by Awataguchi Kunikiyo, a master smith from the early Kamakura period and one of the six Awataguchi brothers. It features a wide mihaba, deep sori, and a graceful koshizori shape. The blade exhibits an ultimate nashiji-hada with fine chikei, a bright nioiguchi, and abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, showcasing the distinctive characteristics of the Awataguchi school. It is designated as a Juyo Token by the NBTHK.
NihontoWatchmei · Awataguchi · Kamakura · nagasa 72.8cm · sori 2.3cm
Awataguchi (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1201-1204
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 2%
Kunikiyo was the fourth of the six brother-masters of the early Awataguchi school in Yamashiro, working in the opening years of the Kamakura period. The published sources set him in that celebrated company: a son of Kuniie, his elder brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu and his younger brothers Arikuni and Kunitsuna, the six of whom all served as appointed swordsmiths to the Retired Emperor Go-Toba. Of his own work very little survives in signature. One Jūyō entry states plainly that 'extant signed pieces are few, numbering only two'[[c:1]], so his name is carried today chiefly by a small group of ō-suriage, mumei katana judged to him, alongside the rare signed tachi.
His hand is the bright, quiet manner of early Awataguchi. The jigane is a closely forged ko-itame, in places running a little or mixed with larger grain, carrying abundant ji-nie and, on the finest blade, frequent chikei; the published sources call the steel notably bright, with a faint midare-utsuri standing in places. Over that jigane he sets not the flamboyant chōji of Bizen but a suguha-toned ko-midare, shallowly notare and worked with ko-chōji, ko-gunome and gunome, ashi entering, the nioiguchi deep and bright, nie well adhered, with fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through. The bōshi goes straight to a ko-maru or ō-maru and returns.
Within that suguha-based edge the judges single out one piece of scenery: patches of yubashiri toward the monouchi that gather into a nijūba-like double line, a feature the published commentary notes on more than one of the ō-suriage blades. It is a restrained tell, in keeping with a smith whose whole character is calm rather than showy.
The published sources read Kunikiyo closest to his brother Kuniyasu. On the signed tachi transmitted in the Unshū Matsudaira house, the commentary finds the temper 'on the whole resembling Kuniyasu'[[c:2]]; on one of the ō-suriage katana the tightly packed intervals of the midare and an urumi tendency of the nioiguchi are held to share 'a thread of affinity with Kuniyasu'[[c:3]]. It is exactly this affinity, set on the characteristic bright Awataguchi ko-itame, that carries the attribution where the signature is gone, and the sources affirm such blades as work that 'at a glance can be appraised as Awataguchi of the early Kamakura'[[c:4]]. He stands within the early Awataguchi mainstream, before the school's later flowering, the quiet suguha-toned ko-midare and the urumi nioiguchi the marks of the family hand.
For the collector Kunikiyo is a rare early Awataguchi name, graded sai-jō saku by the Fujishiro appraisers. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one work designated Important Cultural Property, the Aoyama-family signed tachi, together with the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin signed tachi from the Unshū Matsudaira house, and a small group of ō-suriage mumei katana reaching the Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō tiers, only five works carrying an official designation in all. The Tokubetsu Jūyō katana descended through the Sakai house of Himeji, and the published sources call it a superior blade whose 'glittering nie within the temper is especially magnificent'[[c:5]]; among recorded whereabouts a blade is held by the Fukuyama Art Museum, and his provenance runs through old daimyō and imperial collections. With so few works on record and most of them long held, a signed Kunikiyo comes to light only rarely, and a privately held example of either his signed tachi or his attributed katana is among the more notable things a collector of early Yamashiro could hope to encounter.
Where Kunikiyo 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.
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
4 pieces on the market now
The steel is the first thing one learns to read in Awataguchi work: a ko-itame kneaded so tight that the surface takes on the pear-skin sheen the texts name nashiji-hada, the ji-nie dusted over it fine and even, slender chikei threading through, the whole carrying a moist luster (潤い) and a clarity that recurs in notice after notice. This is the steel of the early Yamashiro tradition at its summit. The forge stood at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Kyoto, on the highway running toward Omi, and a community of smiths already worked there by the early Kamakura period; the tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari attests their presence, so this is a house with a documented place in the literature of its own century. The school is conventionally founded on the six brothers, Kunitomo the eldest, then Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, sons of the founder Kunika (also given as Kuniie). Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu were summoned as goban-kaji to forge on rotation at the cloistered court of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and Hisakuni is even transmitted as a teacher to the sovereign; that imperial patronage is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. What binds the house across four generations is restraint married to refinement. Over the nashiji-hada the brothers set a calm suguha leaning into a shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji, the nioiguchi tight and bright, ko-ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi running within the ha; the boshi turns in a refined ko-maru that very often sweeps with hakikake. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, an edge whose interest lies in the activity within rather than the height of the pattern. Within that shared vocabulary the members are told apart by habit. Kunitomo and Kuniyasu hold to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation, their nioiguchi clouding into urumi; Kuniyasu's linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school.
Kunitsuna is the divergence, a robust o-itame standing prominently over thick ji-nie, with conspicuously strong ha-nie that leans toward the Sagami manner about to be born. The later course runs through Norikuni, the bridge generation, into the tanto age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, where the temper settles into bright suguha in fine ko-nie. Kuniyoshi's tell is the nijuba, the doubled (at times trebled) line along the ha; Yoshimitsu's is the linear kuisagari dropping of nie into the ji beneath the boshi, his suguha a narrow hoso-suguha under a bright nioiguchi. For the collector the school divides into work that can be studied and work that can be owned. Its summit, Toshiro Yoshimitsu, crowns the close of the line; paired with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha, and ranked in the Edo period with Masamune and Go among the Three Great Works under Heaven, he is a smith met in the great collections rather than possessed, his signed tanto the standard against which every attribution is measured. His teacher Kuniyoshi, whose nashiji-hada the texts name outright, is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach, his o-suriage mumei katana anchored on the doubled line. The house also seeded the eastern tradition: Kunitsuna's transmitted descent runs on to Shintogo Kunimitsu, the de facto founder of Soshu, whose own refined nashiji steel passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it, and from whose quiet nie-laden suguha Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige drew the nie-midare of the mature tradition. The refined nie-suguha the brothers fixed was likewise the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, the two hands sitting so close in the eye that gold-inlaid Rai attributions appear on blades grouped with Hisakuni. To kantei an Awataguchi blade is to read the pear-skin steel first, then the quiet nie-laden suguha, then the swept boshi, and to know which brother or pupil the habits name; to acquire one, of any generation, is among the scarcest encounters early Yamashiro affords. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshimitsu吉光 | 1259-1260 | 44 |
| Kuniyoshi國吉 | 1275-1278 | 51 |
| Kunitsuna國綱 | 1240-1264 | 18 |
| Hisakuni久國 | 1190-1199 | 21 |
| Norikuni則國 | 1222-1224 | 15 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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 12,307 (about 1 in 203) 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.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
