Mino was founded, tradition holds, by immigrants: Kaneuji of the Yamato Tegai line settled at Shizu to work in the new Sōshū manner, so persuasively that later appraisers judged his best blades the closest of any to Masamune.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch直江志津とは志津兼氏の一派が、南北朝期の応安前後に養老山麓の志津村から直江村へ移住した刀工群で、兼俊や兼友、兼次、兼延などが有名。志津兼氏は大和手掻系の鍛冶で、相州伝を会得して大和伝と相州伝を融合。後に美濃志津へ移り、関の金重と共に美濃伝の創始と言われている。尚、直江村は度重なる河川の氾濫により、室町初期には関や赤坂へ移住を余儀なくされたという。 本作は相州伝の強い地刃を楽しめる優刀。浅い反りは元来長寸の太刀を磨上げたためで、元幅と先幅の差も少なく豪壮な姿。小乱れの互の目刃文には金筋や沸筋多く働いて動きがあり、飛焼きが随所に見られる。地鉄は板目に杢目が混じった相伝風で、帽子は乱れこんで稲妻走り掃掛け気味。茎は大磨上ながら錆色良く樋が掻き流されている。直江志津は三尺近い太刀が多いとされ、その殆どが磨上げられて短刀以外の在銘品はまず見かけない。特別保存刀剣鑑定書附。 鞘書：伝志津 長一尺七寸八分有 昭和四十五年八月吉日 岳泉鑑誌 落款（大塚岳泉）
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13 on the market
As written by the shop
(Translation unavailable)
Mino-den · Mino
13 pieces on the market now
Within the province of Mino, in the decades of the Nanbokucho period, a body of smiths gathered at Naoe carrying forward the manner of Shizu Saburo Kaneuji, and from that locality they took the name Naoe Shizu. Kaneuji, originally a member of the Yamato Tegai group who studied under Masamune of Sagami and is counted among the Ten Disciples of Masamune (Masamune jittetsu), settled first at Shizu in Mino and established a flourishing school. His pupils and successors, among them Kanetomo, Kanetsugu, Kaneshige, and Kanenobu, relocated within the province to Naoe and forged there, and the smiths of that group are collectively termed Naoe Shizu to distinguish them from Shizu proper, which signifies Kaneuji himself. The lineage is in essence the second generation of the Shizu line, the Soshu-den of Masamune received through Kaneuji and translated into the steel and temper of Mino; the name ran on across several generations into the Muromachi, so that the reference works list more than one Kanetomo, around the Oan era and again around Oei, while the core Nanbokucho production falls in the Kanno, Enbun, Joji, and Oan years of the middle fourteenth century, anchored by the few signed and dated pieces such as a Kanno-dated wakizashi by Kanetsugu. The shared vocabulary of the school is the Shizu manner rendered in Mino. The forging is itame mixed with mokume and nagare-hada, frequently flowing toward masame and standing at times into hada-dachi, over which thick ji-nie settles and chikei enter well, the dark grain-lines threading a steel that is clear and legible; the midare-utsuri a Bizen smith would carry is absent, the ji speaking instead through the depth of its nie. The hamon is a Soshu-den notare crossed with the pointed togariba of Mino-den, gunome and ko-notare tempered in nie or ko-nie, often showing a saka-tendency, with ashi and yo entering and uchi-noke, yubashiri, and tobiyaki along the habuchi; through the temper run sunagashi and kinsuji in profusion, the streaming nie-lines and bright lightning-lines that are the school's surest sign, the nioiguchi deep and brightening at the best examples into something clear and lucid. The boshi answers the ha in midare-komi or notare-komi, turning in a ko-maru or sweeping into yakizume, the point frequently brushed with hakikake.
Within this common ground the hands separate. Kanetomo is read by the linking of round-headed gunome in sequence, calm and elegant in the ko-nie-deki the sources hold him most proficient in; Kanetsugu inclines toward the saka-slanted gunome and togariba with a more powerful, compelling dekiguchi; Tametsugu, a Norishige hand resettled inland rather than a direct Naoe smith, carries a larger, more billowing notare-midare over a steel that darkens, a manner the commentary holds to differ from Shizu and Kaneshige. Set against Kaneuji himself, the Naoe Shizu smiths work in a milder, more workmanlike register, the hada standing less strongly and the chikei fewer than in the master whose manner most closely approaches Masamune. To kantei a Naoe Shizu blade is to read the Soshu activity through a Mino frame, distinguishing it above from Shizu proper, whose forging stands and brightens more vigorously and whose ji and ha carry the higher Sagami character, and below from the later Sue-Seki, whose togariba harden into a drier, more regular tooth without the deep ji-nie and the run of kinsuji and sunagashi; a suguha blade with a whitish shirake tone, by contrast, reads away from the line entirely, toward the Zenjo hands who also bore these names. The strongest members, Kanetomo and Kanetsugu above all, hold their place in the Juyo register, their signed tanto and wakizashi designated Important Art Objects serving as the documentary spine against which the unsigned majority is measured. For the body of the school survives o-suriage and mumei, broad Nanbokucho katana and tanto attributed by resemblance to those scarce signatures, so that signed examples are held exceptionally valuable and reach private hands only with patience. Provenance is thin but real, blades descending through the Naruse and Akaboshi collections, a pair preserved at Atsuta Jingu, and others held by the NBTHK; the typical encounter remains a mumei attribution carrying the open Naoe jigane and the streaming nie of a tradition the smiths of Mino took from Masamune and made their own. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanetomo兼友 | 1336-1340 | 11 |
| Kaneuji兼氏 | 1342-1345 | 3 |
| Kanenobu兼延 | 1368-1375 | 0 |
| Kaneuji兼氏 | 1394-1428 | 0 |
| Kanenobu兼延 | 1390-1394 | 0 |
Mino in the Nanbokuchō period
Mino was founded, tradition holds, by immigrants: Kaneuji of the Yamato Tegai line settled at Shizu to work in the new Sōshū manner, so persuasively that later appraisers judged his best blades the closest of any to Masamune.
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 siteIf the item is not to your liking, please feel free to return it for any reason. Return shipping is the customer's responsibility. After the item arrives and we confirm it is in the same condition as at the time of sale, we transfer the refund to your designated account the same day. Purchases made at the store are outside the scope of cooling-off.
¥880,000