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About the maker

Shizu Kaneuji包氏

Kaneuji written 包氏 is the Yamato side of one of the great names of the Mino tradition. The published sources are consistent on the point: 包氏 was the signature that Shizu Saburō Kaneuji used while he was resident in Yamato, before he studied under Sōshū Masamune, changed the first character of his name to 兼, and settled at Shizu in Tagi District of Mino Province. Works of that Yamato phase have been called Yamato Shizu since antiquity. The term did not stay so narrow. As the NBTHK's commentary puts it, even after the master moved to Mino there were smiths who did not follow him but remained in Yamato and succeeded to the 包氏 name into the Nanbokuchō period, and in the broad sense "such makers too are included under the designation Yamato Shizu" (広義にはこれを含めて大和志津と呼称している). KAN416 gathers both senses under one name, and its workmanship is read throughout as the Yamato Tegai base carrying a Sōshū admixture. The hand divides into two registers, and the published record draws the line plainly. The first is the signed and dated piece: ubu *hira-zukuri* tantō and wakizashi, wide in body and somewhat *sun-nobi*, the *kasane* thin, with a little *sori*, the two-character *mei* cut large and fine below the peg-hole. Over an *itame* that tends to stand a little, with *ji-nie* and *chikei*, the temper is a *gunome-midare* or a shallow *notare* set with pointed *togariba*, *ko-ashi* and *yō* entering, *ko-nie* well adhered, slight *sunagashi* and *kinsuji*, with *tobiyaki*; one wakizashi dated Jōji 1 (1362) adds coarse *nie* and a *kuichigai-ba*, and an Enbun tantō carries a raised *bonji* and a *suken* in its groove. The published sources stress that only a few such signed Nanbokuchō pieces survive, dated to the Kannō, Jōji and Enbun years, that some run to a *hitatsura*-like full temper, and that "the manner of workmanship is not uniform" (作風は一様ではない); they are valued, with their dates, as material for the study of the name. The second and larger register is the *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana appraised as Yamato Shizu. Here the construction is *shinogi-zukuri* with a notably high *shinogi*, the *mihaba* somewhat wide, the *chū-kissaki* extended. The *jigane* flows strongly toward *masame* and stands a little, *ji-nie* lying thick and *chikei* entering, one Tokubetsu Jūyō blade adding a *jifu*-like texture and a faintly blackish steel. The temper rides a *suguha* or *ko-notare* base into which are set linked, round-headed *gunome* and *ko-gunome* with pointed *togariba*; *ashi* and *yō* enter, the *nie* is thick, the *habuchi* shows *hotsure*, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* run frequently, and the *nioiguchi* is bright. The *bōshi* runs straight to a small round, or sweeps into vigorous *hakikake* and *nie-kuzure* to a flame-like form, with *bō-hi* carved through the body. What the commentary names as the tell of the school is precise. The linked, round-headed *gunome* on a calm *suguha*-to-*ko-notare* base is the trait "that Yamato Shizu particularly excelled at within the province" (大和志津が得意としたところ), the feature that separates the school from the plainer Tegai mainstream; and over it the *masame*-leaning flowing *jigane*, the high *shinogi*, the edge *hotsure* and the flame-swept *bōshi* are read as the Yamato temperament surfacing within a Sōshū-toned whole. The judges put it in those terms repeatedly, finding in such blades that "a Yamato temperament is intermingled" (大和気質が混在) and, of one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, that "the characteristic *notare*-based style associated with 包氏 is clearly expressed in both *ji* and *ha*" (包氏ののたれの作風の特色). It is a hand at once unmistakably Yamato in bones and Sōshū in surface. This double identity carries the central scholarly question around the name, and the published sources do not resolve it so much as record its sides. In the broad reading, KAN416 is Kaneuji's pre-Mino Yamato self together with the successors who kept his signature at home. One commentary states the opposite directly, that the Nanbokuchō 包氏 "has no connection with Shizu Kaneuji, who migrated from Yamato" (大和から移住した志津兼氏とは関係がない) and is a separate smith of the same name, certain not only from the signature compendia but from the surviving blades. Either way the mumei attributions rest on era and school rather than on a single personal mark, and the work is held distinct from purely Yamato Tegai pieces, which "differ from the genuine Tegai-school manner" (純然たる大和手掻派の作風とは異なり) by their stronger *nie*, their *chikei* and their Mino-tradition flavour. At its finest the manner approaches the celebrated *meibutsu* Bunbu Shizu, one Tokubetsu Jūyō tantō judged to "call to mind the Bunbu Shizu" (名物分部志津をおもわせる). For the collector this is a Sōshū-touched Yamato name of real standing rather than of the very first rank. Fujishiro grades the smith Jō-jō saku. There are no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties under the code; the record runs instead through the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, four blades at Tokubetsu Jūyō and thirteen at Jūyō, seventeen designated works in all. Provenance is genuinely distinguished where it survives: a Tokubetsu Jūyō katana was the personal sword of Ōmura Masujirō, the Bakumatsu figure remembered as the founder of Japan's modern army; another was held in the Chōfu Mōri family of Nagato; and two of the signed tantō descend from the Makino house, one bestowed by the shogunal family and bearing the *gō* "Minemuri." The signed and dated pieces are the rarities, only a handful on record and prized as research material; the Yamato Shizu mumei katana come to market from time to time, with patience, a Yamato hand wearing Masamune's influence that a private collector can realistically hope to encounter.

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