This is a mumei tanto attributed to Bizen Osafune Morisuke from the mid-Nanbokucho period. It features a hira zukuri, iore mune, and bo-hi on both sides, with a small itame mokume hada and suguba hamon. The blade is in excellent polish, mounted in a high-quality shirasaya, and comes with both Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon papers from the NBTHK, along with a saya-gaki by Mr. Tanobe.
NihontoWatchmumei · Osafune · Nanbokucho · nagasa 29.3cm · sori 0.4cm
Osafune Morisuke
Nanbokuchō
Bizen
Unsigned
Hozon (NBTHK)
Kozori (Osafune, Bizen) · Bizen · around 1354-1384
Tōken Taikan top 17%
Morisuke signs his blades Bishu Osafune Morisuke in six characters, often adding a date, and one of his tachi carries on its reverse a Joji 2 (1363) inscription that fixes him squarely in the late Nanbokucho period. He was an Osafune smith, but his line within that great Bizen workshop cannot be clearly drawn. The published sources count him among the Kozori, the slightly-curved-sword smiths, and place him probably in the lineage of Moriie and the Hatakeda group, with the further note that his work can also be appraised alongside the Yoshii-mono of the same province. The reference books list a Morisuke succession of several generations, the first in Ryakuo, the second in Enbun, the third in Eitoku, then a fourth in Oei and a fifth in Bun'an, and the surviving signed pieces are judged to fall in the late Nanbokucho around Eitoku. Signed work by his hand is exceedingly rare, so each of the blades on record is valued less for fame than as material for knowing a smith of whom little else survives.
The hand that recurs across his blades is a small-patterned temper, and it is this that the published sources name as the clearly expressed mark of Kozori workmanship. Over a ko-notare base he mixes gunome, ko-gunome, ko-choji, pointed teeth and angular squared-off elements, the whole never resolving into the large round gunome of the Kanemitsu-derived mainline but staying compact and busy, a ko-moyo. Into it run ashi and yo; nie gathers well along the edge; in places the habuchi loosens into hotsure, and kinsuji and sunagashi play conspicuously through the tempered area. On his finest tachi, the Eitoku-era piece in particular, the published record calls the result a blade rich in hataraki and 「覇気に充ちており」, filled with vigor[[c:1]], while remaining sound in both ji and ha. The boshi is not fixed to one shape: on the hira-zukuri and naginata work it enters in midare and points at the turn, while on the tachi it runs straight to a small round return, so that the temper of the tip tracks the form of the blade rather than carrying a single signature.
The jigane is read through the standing of the grain. He forges an itame that tends to stand open, mokume and nagare-hada mixing into it, with fine ji-nie attaching, passages of jifu-like texture, and dark chikei-toned steel entering on the best pieces. Over this rises the reflection that places him a Bizen, not a Soshu, hand of the period: a midare-utsuri on the broad tachi, broad and straight low on the blade and breaking into irregularity higher up, and on the wide hira-zukuri sun-nobi tanto a bo-utsuri standing along the edge side. The reflection is named on most of his recorded blades, and on the long tachi it rises clearly enough to be one of the surer tells of his work. It is the jigane and its utsuri, more than any one shape in the yakiba, that anchor the appraisal of so sparsely documented a smith.
His range divides into two registers without changing its essential manner. The first is the Nanbokucho tachi, of which the most arresting is a long o-dachi of wide mihaba, high koshizori and evident funbari running to a chu-kissaki, a piece the published sources call 「南北朝時代の大太刀の典例」, an exemplary model of the great tachi of the age[[c:2]], and prize the more because it survives ubu, signed and dated; on it the temper opens into a gunome-midare with kataochi-style gunome. The second register is the wide hira-zukuri sun-nobi tanto and ko-wakizashi, where the gunome compacts into close-set ko-gunome with togariba and a saka tendency, the nioiguchi tightening or sinking, the boshi entering in midare and pointing. Of one such wakizashi the published record says he was 「互の目を得意としている」, especially proficient in gunome[[c:3]], and on these smaller pieces a bo-hi is carved on both faces close to the mune. The dating of his work carries a historical interest beyond the smithing: his blades bear both the Southern Court Enbun years and the Northern Court Joji and Teiji years, and because many are dated Joji the judges reason that he was at that time a smith aligned with the Northern Court. The published sources draw from this the larger picture that 「当時の備前が, 南北両朝の間に右往左往していた」, that Bizen of the day was pulled back and forth between the two courts[[c:4]].
What the Kozori name means has been explained in many ways since old times and resists a clean definition, but the published sources treat it as 「兼光と師弟関係の無い刀工の一括した呼称」, a collective designation for the late-Nanbokucho Osafune smiths[[c:5]] who, while not in a master-disciple line with Kanemitsu, worked in a manner descended from his. Morisuke belongs squarely to that body, and the NBTHK observes of his shortened signed tachi that 「この作は此の工のみならず小反りの典型的作風を示している」, that it shows not only this smith's own characteristics but the typical style of the Kozori group as a whole[[c:6]]. A Morisuke blade thus reads as a standard of its kind: his bright Bizen utsuri over a standing itame and his small-patterned, busy gunome set him within the Kozori manner rather than the round-gunome line of Kanemitsu proper, and distinguish him in turn from the Soshu-leaning hands of the same decades. His lineage to Moriie and Hatakeda is offered by the published sources only as a probability, and they are candid that his place within Osafune is not securely established.
Morisuke is not a smith of National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; his record stands at seven blades that have reached the Juyo Token rank, with no Tokubetsu Juyo and no higher designation, and no provenance to a daimyo house is preserved among them. His standing rests instead on the scarcity of his signed work and on the quality of the few pieces that carry it: the dated o-dachi held an exemplary Nanbokucho tachi, the Eitoku tachi a blade of conspicuous vigor, and the small dated wakizashi and tanto valued as documentary evidence of a hand whose signed output is, in the words of the published record, exceedingly few. These are designated cultural property held in private and institutional hands rather than objects of the market, and an authenticated, signed Morisuke comes before a collector only rarely, the more so for being both signed and dated. For the student of Bizen its interest is precise: not a famous name but a clear, datable window onto the Kozori workshops of the late Nanbokucho, and onto a province caught between the Northern and Southern courts.
Where Morisuke 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
28 pieces on the market now
The Kozori (小反り) form a loose body of Bizen smiths who worked at and around Osafune in the closing decades of the Nanbokucho period and on into early Muromachi, and the NBTHK defines them less by descent than by exclusion: they are the late-Osafune hands who fall outside the specific lineages of Kanemitsu, Chogi, Motoshige and the Omiya group, gathered under one name as a convenience. The reading of the name itself has been explained in several ways, and the published sources are candid that it resists a clean definition; the prevailing sense is the ko-sori, the slight or shallow reverse-curvature of the blades, the shape running to a deep koshizori with marked funbari and a small point in the older pieces and growing heavy in the kasane toward Oei. The body has no single founder. Smiths such as Moromitsu (師光), recorded as the father of the Oei master Morimitsu, anchor the group through dated tachi; Iesuke and Iemori carry Hatakeda blood; Nariie descends from Kagehide; Morisuke, Shigeyoshi, Tsunehiro, Hidemitsu, Motomasa and others fill out the periphery, several of whose lines run several generations and whose precise generation-by-generation reading the institution leaves to further study. Across these hands runs a shared vocabulary, and the recurring word for it is scale. The jigane is the constant: an itame mixed with mokume and nagare, the grain standing a little (hada-tachi), fine ji-nie attaching, dark chikei-toned and at times jifu-like passages crossing the steel, and over it the midare-utsuri (sometimes a bo-utsuri or straight sugu-utsuri) that places the group squarely in the Bizen-den. The temper is nioi-based with ko-nie, built on a shallow ko-notare into which the smiths set ko-gunome running connected and threaded, pointed togariba, angular squared elements, open-waisted koshi-biraki gunome and modest choji, the whole kept small and crowded (kozumu), with ko-ashi and yo entering and fine sunagashi and kinsuji playing through. The boshi answers in midare-komi, pointing or settling to a ko-maru with hakikake.
Within the shared idiom each hand has its tell: Moromitsu tempers the most subdued, low-lying midare; Nariie's gunome crowds where Kanemitsu's opens; Hidemitsu and Hidemitsu of the Koreha branch lean to a reverse-slanting saka-gakari and saka-ashi near the Aoe manner, and turn now and then to a quiet chu-suguha; Tsunehiro favours a kataochi-like gunome; Iesuke and Iemori, working into Oei, open the valleys toward the early-Muromachi pattern. A collector seeks Kozori for legibility rather than flourish. Many of the best survivors are ubu, signed and dated tachi, and that dated file (Joji, Oan, Eiwa, Shitoku, Eitoku, Meitoku into Oei) gives the late history of Osafune a year-by-year spine, prized as reference material for the period; the names also map a province pulled between the Northern and Southern courts, Morisuke's Joji dates reading as Northern Court alignment. To kantei the group is to read it against its neighbours: the small, crowded, nioi-toned midare and the standing itame with kawarigane chikei separate it from the bolder, more uniform gunome of the Kanemitsu mainline of the Nanbokucho height, while the open koshi-biraki valleys and the heavier, sakizori late sugata point forward to and distinguish it from the more decorative Oei-Bizen of Morimitsu and Yasumitsu (a threshold several Kozori blades, in NBTHK phrasing, already anticipate). Among the members the institution ranks Moromitsu and Nariie high (Nariie held equal to the Kanemitsu pupil Masamitsu), Iesuke beside the leading Oei names, and Hidemitsu the leading hand of the Koreha branch. Provenance, though thinly recorded for some, reaches real houses: blades descend through the Kuroda, Kaga Maeda, Shonai Sakai and Hojo families, with examples in the Hayashibara Museum and the national museums, and the occasional Imperial line. A signed, dated Kozori blade comes to hand only from time to time, a quiet, datable window onto Osafune as it closed its Nanbokucho age. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Hidemitsu秀光 | 1375-1392 | 19 |
| Iesuke家助 | 1394-1428 | 11 |
| Iemori家守 | 1377-1406 | 15 |
| Nariie成家 | 1352-1362 | 21 |
| Moromitsu師光 | 1375-1390 | 7 |
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.
NBTHK official site3-day return window from receipt.
This is a mumei tanto attributed to Bizen Osafune Morisuke from the mid-Nanbokucho period. It features a hira zukuri, iore mune, and bo-hi on both sides, with a small itame mokume hada and suguba hamon. The blade is in excellent polish, mounted in a high-quality shirasaya, and comes with both Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon papers from the NBTHK, along with a saya-gaki by Mr. Tanobe.
NihontoWatchmumei · Osafune · Nanbokucho · nagasa 29.3cm · sori 0.4cm
Osafune Morisuke
Nanbokuchō
Bizen
Unsigned
Hozon (NBTHK)
Kozori (Osafune, Bizen) · Bizen · around 1354-1384
Tōken Taikan top 17%
Morisuke signs his blades Bishu Osafune Morisuke in six characters, often adding a date, and one of his tachi carries on its reverse a Joji 2 (1363) inscription that fixes him squarely in the late Nanbokucho period. He was an Osafune smith, but his line within that great Bizen workshop cannot be clearly drawn. The published sources count him among the Kozori, the slightly-curved-sword smiths, and place him probably in the lineage of Moriie and the Hatakeda group, with the further note that his work can also be appraised alongside the Yoshii-mono of the same province. The reference books list a Morisuke succession of several generations, the first in Ryakuo, the second in Enbun, the third in Eitoku, then a fourth in Oei and a fifth in Bun'an, and the surviving signed pieces are judged to fall in the late Nanbokucho around Eitoku. Signed work by his hand is exceedingly rare, so each of the blades on record is valued less for fame than as material for knowing a smith of whom little else survives.
The hand that recurs across his blades is a small-patterned temper, and it is this that the published sources name as the clearly expressed mark of Kozori workmanship. Over a ko-notare base he mixes gunome, ko-gunome, ko-choji, pointed teeth and angular squared-off elements, the whole never resolving into the large round gunome of the Kanemitsu-derived mainline but staying compact and busy, a ko-moyo. Into it run ashi and yo; nie gathers well along the edge; in places the habuchi loosens into hotsure, and kinsuji and sunagashi play conspicuously through the tempered area. On his finest tachi, the Eitoku-era piece in particular, the published record calls the result a blade rich in hataraki and 「覇気に充ちており」, filled with vigor[[c:1]], while remaining sound in both ji and ha. The boshi is not fixed to one shape: on the hira-zukuri and naginata work it enters in midare and points at the turn, while on the tachi it runs straight to a small round return, so that the temper of the tip tracks the form of the blade rather than carrying a single signature.
The jigane is read through the standing of the grain. He forges an itame that tends to stand open, mokume and nagare-hada mixing into it, with fine ji-nie attaching, passages of jifu-like texture, and dark chikei-toned steel entering on the best pieces. Over this rises the reflection that places him a Bizen, not a Soshu, hand of the period: a midare-utsuri on the broad tachi, broad and straight low on the blade and breaking into irregularity higher up, and on the wide hira-zukuri sun-nobi tanto a bo-utsuri standing along the edge side. The reflection is named on most of his recorded blades, and on the long tachi it rises clearly enough to be one of the surer tells of his work. It is the jigane and its utsuri, more than any one shape in the yakiba, that anchor the appraisal of so sparsely documented a smith.
His range divides into two registers without changing its essential manner. The first is the Nanbokucho tachi, of which the most arresting is a long o-dachi of wide mihaba, high koshizori and evident funbari running to a chu-kissaki, a piece the published sources call 「南北朝時代の大太刀の典例」, an exemplary model of the great tachi of the age[[c:2]], and prize the more because it survives ubu, signed and dated; on it the temper opens into a gunome-midare with kataochi-style gunome. The second register is the wide hira-zukuri sun-nobi tanto and ko-wakizashi, where the gunome compacts into close-set ko-gunome with togariba and a saka tendency, the nioiguchi tightening or sinking, the boshi entering in midare and pointing. Of one such wakizashi the published record says he was 「互の目を得意としている」, especially proficient in gunome[[c:3]], and on these smaller pieces a bo-hi is carved on both faces close to the mune. The dating of his work carries a historical interest beyond the smithing: his blades bear both the Southern Court Enbun years and the Northern Court Joji and Teiji years, and because many are dated Joji the judges reason that he was at that time a smith aligned with the Northern Court. The published sources draw from this the larger picture that 「当時の備前が, 南北両朝の間に右往左往していた」, that Bizen of the day was pulled back and forth between the two courts[[c:4]].
What the Kozori name means has been explained in many ways since old times and resists a clean definition, but the published sources treat it as 「兼光と師弟関係の無い刀工の一括した呼称」, a collective designation for the late-Nanbokucho Osafune smiths[[c:5]] who, while not in a master-disciple line with Kanemitsu, worked in a manner descended from his. Morisuke belongs squarely to that body, and the NBTHK observes of his shortened signed tachi that 「この作は此の工のみならず小反りの典型的作風を示している」, that it shows not only this smith's own characteristics but the typical style of the Kozori group as a whole[[c:6]]. A Morisuke blade thus reads as a standard of its kind: his bright Bizen utsuri over a standing itame and his small-patterned, busy gunome set him within the Kozori manner rather than the round-gunome line of Kanemitsu proper, and distinguish him in turn from the Soshu-leaning hands of the same decades. His lineage to Moriie and Hatakeda is offered by the published sources only as a probability, and they are candid that his place within Osafune is not securely established.
Morisuke is not a smith of National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties; his record stands at seven blades that have reached the Juyo Token rank, with no Tokubetsu Juyo and no higher designation, and no provenance to a daimyo house is preserved among them. His standing rests instead on the scarcity of his signed work and on the quality of the few pieces that carry it: the dated o-dachi held an exemplary Nanbokucho tachi, the Eitoku tachi a blade of conspicuous vigor, and the small dated wakizashi and tanto valued as documentary evidence of a hand whose signed output is, in the words of the published record, exceedingly few. These are designated cultural property held in private and institutional hands rather than objects of the market, and an authenticated, signed Morisuke comes before a collector only rarely, the more so for being both signed and dated. For the student of Bizen its interest is precise: not a famous name but a clear, datable window onto the Kozori workshops of the late Nanbokucho, and onto a province caught between the Northern and Southern courts.
Where Morisuke 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
28 pieces on the market now
The Kozori (小反り) form a loose body of Bizen smiths who worked at and around Osafune in the closing decades of the Nanbokucho period and on into early Muromachi, and the NBTHK defines them less by descent than by exclusion: they are the late-Osafune hands who fall outside the specific lineages of Kanemitsu, Chogi, Motoshige and the Omiya group, gathered under one name as a convenience. The reading of the name itself has been explained in several ways, and the published sources are candid that it resists a clean definition; the prevailing sense is the ko-sori, the slight or shallow reverse-curvature of the blades, the shape running to a deep koshizori with marked funbari and a small point in the older pieces and growing heavy in the kasane toward Oei. The body has no single founder. Smiths such as Moromitsu (師光), recorded as the father of the Oei master Morimitsu, anchor the group through dated tachi; Iesuke and Iemori carry Hatakeda blood; Nariie descends from Kagehide; Morisuke, Shigeyoshi, Tsunehiro, Hidemitsu, Motomasa and others fill out the periphery, several of whose lines run several generations and whose precise generation-by-generation reading the institution leaves to further study. Across these hands runs a shared vocabulary, and the recurring word for it is scale. The jigane is the constant: an itame mixed with mokume and nagare, the grain standing a little (hada-tachi), fine ji-nie attaching, dark chikei-toned and at times jifu-like passages crossing the steel, and over it the midare-utsuri (sometimes a bo-utsuri or straight sugu-utsuri) that places the group squarely in the Bizen-den. The temper is nioi-based with ko-nie, built on a shallow ko-notare into which the smiths set ko-gunome running connected and threaded, pointed togariba, angular squared elements, open-waisted koshi-biraki gunome and modest choji, the whole kept small and crowded (kozumu), with ko-ashi and yo entering and fine sunagashi and kinsuji playing through. The boshi answers in midare-komi, pointing or settling to a ko-maru with hakikake.
Within the shared idiom each hand has its tell: Moromitsu tempers the most subdued, low-lying midare; Nariie's gunome crowds where Kanemitsu's opens; Hidemitsu and Hidemitsu of the Koreha branch lean to a reverse-slanting saka-gakari and saka-ashi near the Aoe manner, and turn now and then to a quiet chu-suguha; Tsunehiro favours a kataochi-like gunome; Iesuke and Iemori, working into Oei, open the valleys toward the early-Muromachi pattern. A collector seeks Kozori for legibility rather than flourish. Many of the best survivors are ubu, signed and dated tachi, and that dated file (Joji, Oan, Eiwa, Shitoku, Eitoku, Meitoku into Oei) gives the late history of Osafune a year-by-year spine, prized as reference material for the period; the names also map a province pulled between the Northern and Southern courts, Morisuke's Joji dates reading as Northern Court alignment. To kantei the group is to read it against its neighbours: the small, crowded, nioi-toned midare and the standing itame with kawarigane chikei separate it from the bolder, more uniform gunome of the Kanemitsu mainline of the Nanbokucho height, while the open koshi-biraki valleys and the heavier, sakizori late sugata point forward to and distinguish it from the more decorative Oei-Bizen of Morimitsu and Yasumitsu (a threshold several Kozori blades, in NBTHK phrasing, already anticipate). Among the members the institution ranks Moromitsu and Nariie high (Nariie held equal to the Kanemitsu pupil Masamitsu), Iesuke beside the leading Oei names, and Hidemitsu the leading hand of the Koreha branch. Provenance, though thinly recorded for some, reaches real houses: blades descend through the Kuroda, Kaga Maeda, Shonai Sakai and Hojo families, with examples in the Hayashibara Museum and the national museums, and the occasional Imperial line. A signed, dated Kozori blade comes to hand only from time to time, a quiet, datable window onto Osafune as it closed its Nanbokucho age. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Hidemitsu秀光 | 1375-1392 | 19 |
| Iesuke家助 | 1394-1428 | 11 |
| Iemori家守 | 1377-1406 | 15 |
| Nariie成家 | 1352-1362 | 21 |
| Moromitsu師光 | 1375-1390 | 7 |
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.
NBTHK official site3-day return window from receipt.
