This is a katana signed by Hizen Koku Ju Mutsu Kami Tadayoshi (3rd Generation) from the Shinto period. It features an elegant gunome-midare hamon with deep nioikuchi and a boshi that turns back deeply and roundly. The sword comes with koshirae and is certified as NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Token.
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Hizen (Saga) · Hizen · around 1660-1686
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 8%
3 pieces on the market now
Mutsu no Kami Tadayoshi is the third generation of the Hizen main line at Saga, the eldest son of the second-generation Ōmi no Daijō Tadahiro. Born in Kan'ei 14 and called Shinzaburō, he received the title Mutsu no Daijō in Manji 3, became Mutsu no Kami in Kanbun 1, and died in Jōkyō 3 at fifty, seven years before his father. The Tadayoshi name came to him because, after the death of Tosa no Kami Tadayoshi, that house returned it to the main line. The published sources explain the comparative scarcity of his work by a short career and by his service for his long-lived father, his works being few "because he served as a substitute maker for his father"[[c:1]].
His characteristic manner is a chū-suguha, the temper the published sources call the one "he most excelled in"[[c:2]]. It is tempered with deep nioi and well-adhered ko-nie, small ashi entering, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running through it, and a bright, clear nioiguchi. The sugata is typically long, wide and thick, with a deep sori and an extended chū-kissaki, heavy in the hand. The judges read this shape as his grandfather's rather than his father's, "calling to mind not the father but rather the grandfather, the first-generation Tadayoshi"[[c:3]]. The bōshi is a ko-maru that turns back deeply and stops firmly toward the mune, and the published sources single this out: "the ko-maru of the bōshi is deeper than in the first and second generations"[[c:4]].
His reputation rests above all on the jigane. A ko-itame packed tightly, with ji-nie fine and thick, takes on the rice-bran komenuka-hada of Hizen, and chikei enter finely to give it strength. The published sources call his forging "the strongest and most refined of the upper three generations"[[c:5]] and name it his true hallmark, "the excellence of his forging is his true hallmark"[[c:6]]. On one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana they go further, finding the fine activity of a suguha edge "to the degree of surpassing the first generation"[[c:7]].
The record falls into distinct groups that the published sources themselves draw. An early group is placed by the shape of the nakago tip, judged "an early work of this smith from the iriyamagata tip and the manner of signature"[[c:8]]; even these already show the strong jigane and the deep bōshi. Beside the suguha stands a chōji-midare register. His own chōji mixes gunome, angular and pointed elements, small in pattern and with some rise and fall, and "small tobiyaki at the heads are often seen"[[c:9]]. On some wakizashi he tempered his father's ashinaga-chōji, and on one tachi the pattern is "to be mistaken for the chōji-midare of his father Ōmi"[[c:10]]. Dated works are scarce: the published sources state that "dated works by this smith are extremely rare"[[c:11]], and they treat his Kanbun 2 and Enpō 4 blades as documents of his signature.
Part of his record carries his father's name. Five blades signed Hizen no Kuni ju Ōmi no Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro are judged by the NBTHK to be his work, each concluding that "this sword is perceived to be a substitute work of the third-generation Tadayoshi"[[c:12]]. The evidence is his own hand: a chōji smaller and livelier than the father's orderly ashinaga-chōji, ji-nie finer and thicker with more prominent chikei, a deeper bōshi, shallow katte-agari file marks and the chisel of the signature. The published sources value them as material "for knowing the work of the third generation as substitute maker for his father the second-generation Tadahiro"[[c:13]]. He is also the maker of a rare gassaku with the second-generation Masahiro, which the published sources call unique: "a joint work of the third-generation Tadayoshi and Masahiro is not seen apart from this sword"[[c:14]].
Two further judgments shape his record. A rare katana signed only with the five characters Hizen no Kuni Tadayoshi is attributed to him rather than to the founder, by the chisel of the signature, the position of the mekugi-ana and the workmanship; the published sources note that "the five-character Tadayoshi signature of this smith is extremely rare"[[c:15]]. They also caution that the main line signs katana on the ura in the tachi-mei position, so that a signature in the katana-mei position "calls for particular care regarding authenticity"[[c:16]].
Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties on record; his standing rests on nine blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō rank and some fifty in the Jūyō, with two blades in the Imperial collection. Several of the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana are called his finest workmanship, one of them "transmitted in the Nabeshima family in the domain era"[[c:17]], the house his line served. Signed blades of Mutsu no Kami survive in real numbers and a Jūyō example reaches the market from time to time, while his finest komenuka suguha katana come to light only rarely and are a landmark when they do.
Where Tadayoshi 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
Shinto · Hizen
132 pieces on the market now
The Hizen school began with a single domain commission. In Keicho 1 (1596) the Nabeshima of Hizen ordered Hashimoto Shinzaemon, the smith who would sign Tadayoshi, up to Kyoto with the carver Munenaga; there he entered the gate of Umetada Myoju and studied forging while Munenaga learned the chisel. The two returned to the province in Keicho 3 (1598), and Tadayoshi settled in the castle town below Saga, where under the domain's patronage the line grew into the dominant sword-making house of Kyushu. His own work runs from Keicho 5 (1600) to his death in Kan'ei 9 (1632); in Genna 10 (1624) he received the court title Musashi Daijo, changed his name to Tadahiro, and shifted his clan name from Minamoto to Fujiwara, so that the late Musashi Daijo blades are the founder under a second name. From him the house became a true generational institution: his son the second-generation Omi Daijo Tadahiro carried it forward as its most prolific hand, the third-generation Mutsu no Kami Tadayoshi returned its highest finish, and a Tosa no Kami branch took the founder's signature when he set it aside. Around this main line grew a circle of disciples and collateral hands, the waki-Hizen or Soba-Hizen smiths, several of them, like Yoshiie and Hironori, working as daisaku substitute makers whose own signed pieces are therefore scarce. The school's signature is its steel. Over a ko-itame forged so tightly it shows no slackness, fine ji-nie gathers in minute particles until the surface takes on the rice-bran konuka-hada (also written komenuka-hada) that no other school produces, fine chikei entering throughout and the ji notably clear and bright.
The orthodox temper laid upon it is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha, sometimes tinged with a shallow notare and ko-gunome, the nioiguchi deep with finely clustered ko-nie and tightened to a bright clarity, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru. The founder aimed this suguha toward the Rai school yet departed from it, his nioiguchi tighter and his forging carrying more vigor; the third generation refined it to what the published sources call the strongest and most precise hand of the first three generations. Against that calm register the house also worked a showier one, the Hizen choji-midare mixing gunome, long ashi, kinsuji and sunagashi, a manner the published sources already find more often in the founder's late Musashi Daijo work than in his Tadayoshi years, and one the second generation made his own. The branches pushed further from the suguha standard: Tadakuni of the Ogi domain ran sunagashi more conspicuously than any other Hizen hand and reached toward old Ichimonji in his o-choji; Masahiro and Yukihiro favored a flamboyant long-ashi choji over the calm main line; and the Iyo no Jo Munetsugu line worked apart in the Soshu-den, building a midareba on notare with a pointed togariba and a jihada that tends to stand and tone slightly blackish. A collector seeks Hizen-to first for that steel, and reads it the same way the appraiser does: a bright suguha lying over a clear, tight konuka-hada identifies the school before the signature is consulted, and the quiet ko-maru boshi on the ura-signed tang confirms the main-line practice. Generation and branch are then told within that frame, the third generation's powerful sugata recalling not his father but his grandfather, the waki-Hizen hands set apart by their irregular temper, their sujikai file marks and a sashi-ura signature, the Munetsugu line by its Soshu togari. The main line, made in real numbers across so long a span, reaches the market more readily than any Kamakura master, so a papered example is within reach of a patient collector, while the founder's own work and the finest konuka-suguha of the third generation come to open hands only from time to time. Provenance runs back through the house the school served, blades recorded to Nabeshima Katsushige and Nabeshima Naomoto and passing onward to the Owari Tokugawa, the Satake and the Imperial families; documentary inscriptions sharpen the picture further, a Myoju soemei attesting the founder's discipleship, Umetada carving adding flowers to brocade on his late blades, and the gold-inlaid cutting tests of Yamano Kanjuro and Yamano Ka'emon, rare on Hizen work, naming the edge as well as the hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1596-1632 | 155 |
| Tadayoshi忠吉 | 1660-1686 | 62 |
| Tadahiro忠廣 | 1633-1693 | 134 |
| Tadakuni忠國 | 1648-1652 | 32 |
| Masahiro正廣 | 1624-1655 | 30 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Under the Tokugawa peace the daishō became a regulated uniform, and demand gathered in the castle towns, above all Edo itself. The craft split two ways: brilliant display work for connoisseurs, and tested blades whose cutting results were sometimes inlaid in gold.
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.
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