This is a tachi by Osafune Motoshige, a master smith from Bizen, known as a Saijo O Wazamono. It features an elegant Yamashiro-style form with a beautiful Bizen-den jigane showing yugen utsuri. The blade exhibits a robust character with a sharp kissaki, and the hamon beautifully blends Bizen-den and Soshu-den characteristics with soft ashi and yo.
NihontoWatchmei · Osafune · Kagen (1303-1306) · nagasa 71.2cm · sori 1.6cm
Osafune, Motoshige line (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1316-1363
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 14%
4 pieces on the market now
The dated work of Osafune Motoshige opens with a tantō inscribed Shōwa 5 (1316) and closes in the Jōji era of the mid Nanbokuchō period, a span of some fifty years. Across this interval the published sources allow a first and a second generation, while noting that no settled consensus exists as to where the boundary falls. On one point the record is constant: Motoshige of the Osafune group in Bizen was a smith of a line distinct from Kanemitsu and Chōgi. The old genealogies derive the line instead from Hatakeda Moriie: the son of the second-generation Moriie was Morishige, and Morishige's son was Motoshige. He stands apart both from the Osafune mainline of Mitsutada and Nagamitsu and from the houses beside him, and the individuality of his blades answers to that separate descent.
The manner the published sources assign him returns almost word for word. The forging mixes flowing masame and jifu; in the hamon, angular gunome stand out over a suguha tone, and the whole slants in saka-gakari; within the temper work saka-ashi and yō; the bōshi becomes pointed. The notes conclude that "the viewing points of this smith and his school lie precisely in the point where the Aoe temperament is mixed in"[[c:1]]. The squared teeth are the most personal of these marks: the sources describe "angular gunome with the yakigashira aligned in a straight line, peculiar to this smith"[[c:2]], read most clearly around the monouchi. The nioiguchi tends toward tightness with ko-nie, and fine kinsuji and sunagashi thread the ha.
The jigane is an itame mixed with mokume and flowing grain, standing somewhat across the surface. Very fine ji-nie attaches, fine chikei enter, jifu is interlaced, and a midare-utsuri rises, often vividly. His uchi-zori tantō are forged in ko-itame with a slight flowing tendency, and the refined forging of his best tachi appears at a glance almost a pure ko-itame.
The record divides into clear registers. An earlier group of thick-chiselled two-character signatures on the haki-ura, called Ko-Motoshige and represented by a Jūyō Bijutsuhin tachi dated Kagen 2 (1304), the sources hold to be a different and somewhat earlier man than the long-signature Osafune Motoshige, whether the ancestor of the line or a smith connected with Aoe; those blades are recorded under their own entry. His own dated Kamakura work runs from Shōwa 5 through Karyaku into Kenmu: tantō of standard proportions with uchi-zori, in kataochi-gunome so close to the older manner that one dated blade reads "almost as though one were viewing the work of Kagemitsu"[[c:3]]. From the Nanbokuchō years the build turns grand: wide mihaba with little taper, shallow sori, a large kissaki, the Enbun and Jōji stance. The bulk of what survives answers to it as ō-suriage unsigned katana; among the signed pieces stands an ubu tachi of 94.45 cm preserving the full form of the period. Edo tradition counted Motoshige among the three sages of Sadamune (貞宗三哲) beside Nobukuni and Hōjōji Kunimitsu, a claim the published sources find "hard to credit out of hand"[[c:4]]: most of his surviving work is plainly Bizen, with fewer Sōshū-tinged pieces than Kanemitsu or Chōgi. The exception is real: in the wakizashi transmitted in the Shimazu family, an Important Cultural Property, the nie of ji and ha grows extraordinarily strong and chikei and kinsuji stand out.
A blade of his may show "at a rough glance a manner that could be taken for Aoe"[[c:5]]; yet the angular teeth aligned at the yakigashira and the vividly standing midare-utsuri return the appraisal to Motoshige, a Bizen temperament at base that wears the air of neighboring Bitchū. Against Kagemitsu, to whom the old books liken him, the wider ha, the pointed bōshi and the loosened flowing masame and jifu in the jigane reveal "the individuality of a Motoshige whose line differs from that of Kagemitsu and his kind"[[c:6]]. The same viewing points are shared, the notes add, by his school, Shigezane and the rest, who carried the squared, slanting manner through the Nanbokuchō period.
He is rated Jō-jō saku in Fujishiro's grading, and 154 designated works stand on record: seven Important Cultural Properties, eight Jūyō Bijutsuhin, one blade in the Imperial Collection, and 138 blades across the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, twenty-one of them Tokubetsu Jūyō. Unsigned blades outnumber signed ones, ninety-nine against fifty, so he is met most often as an ō-suriage unsigned katana. The named pieces carry the history: the Kenmu 1 (1334) tachi called "the white eyebrow among his works"[[c:7]]; the Kan'ō 3 (1352) tachi of Kan'in-no-miya transmission; the Satake katana bestowed by Shōgun Tokugawa Ienobu in Hōei 8 (1711), whose Hon'ami Kōon gold-inlay attribution the sources call "entirely just"[[c:8]]; and the Date family katana that may be the very Motoshige the Tokugawa Jikki (徳川実紀) records Iemitsu granting Date Masamune in Kan'ei 1 (1624). Twenty-eight blades carry recorded provenance, through the Date, Satake, Uesugi, Hachisuka, Hosokawa, Shimazu, Owari Tokugawa and Yanagisawa houses and into the Imperial Family. The Important Cultural Properties can never trade, and holdings of the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum, the Hayashibara Museum of Art, the Seikadō Bunko Art Museum, Uesugi Jinja and the British Museum stand outside the market. Yet with 138 blades in those tiers he remains among the few major names of Nanbokuchō Bizen a collector can still realistically hold, and the hand declares itself wherever the squared, slanting ha runs beneath a vivid utsuri.
Where Motoshige 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
Phase: Sōden-Bizen相伝備前· 1330–1394
6 pieces on the market now
The Soden Bizen school encompasses the group of Nanbokucho-period Osafune smiths in Bizen Province whose work absorbed the technical influence of the Soshu-den, producing a distinctive synthesis that stands apart from both orthodox Bizen and pure Sagami practice. The school divides into two principal lineages: the Kanemitsu group, representing the direct main line of Osafune that descends from Mitsutada through Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu; and the Chogi group, a collateral branch whose members carried the Soshu idiom to its most expressive extremes within Bizen. Kanemitsu, the chakuryu heir of Kagemitsu, pioneered the broad, relaxed notare-based midare that defines the mature Nanbokucho Osafune manner, while Chogi -- described by the NBTHK as the smith "who departs furthest from Bizen" among Bizen makers -- pushed nie-dominant forging to a level that rivals the output of the great Sagami smiths themselves. Together with disciples and contemporaries including Tomomitsu, Motomitsu, Masamitsu, Yoshimitsu, Kanenaga, Nagashige, and Nagamori, they constitute one of the most prolific and technically accomplished groups in the history of Japanese swordsmithing. The school's collective technical identity is anchored in a shared jigane of itame-hada mixed with mokume, with fine ji-nie adhering thickly, chikei entering well, and midare-utsuri standing out -- a persistent Bizen hallmark that survives even in the most Soshu-inflected work. The sugata overwhelmingly reflects the grand Nanbokucho taihai: wide mihaba with little taper between base and tip, and an extended chu-kissaki or o-kissaki conveying martial vigor. Within this shared framework, two distinct temperaments emerge.
" Yoshimitsu likewise inherits the small-pattern tendency, producing ko-gunome mixed with ko-choji whose restraint the NBTHK praises as "upper rank" Soden Bizen. The Chogi lineage, by contrast, emphasizes powerful nie in both ji and ha: Chogi's flamboyant large-scale midare weaves together gunome, choji, togariba, and koshi-hiraki forms with tobiyaki and yubashiri scattering freely, while kinsuji and sunagashi streak through the hardened edge. " Nagashige, now thought to be Chogi's elder brother rather than his junior, works a gentler, smaller-patterned midare yet with nie so strong as to "even surpass Chogi," while Nagamori occupies an intermediate position, his "somewhat smaller patterning" accompanied by rich internal activity. The historical significance of the Soden Bizen school lies in its demonstration that the Soshu influence, far from merely displacing Bizen conventions, catalyzed an extraordinary expansion of the Osafune repertoire. " The NBTHK's evaluative language across the school converges on consistent themes: the forging is "meticulous" and "excellent-quality," the nioiguchi "bright and clear," and the finest examples display a kenzen condition that attests to the soundness of Bizen steel at its peak. The abundance of dated inscriptions -- from Kanemitsu's forty-five-year span through Masamitsu's four-decade career extending into the early Muromachi period -- provides an unusually well-documented chronological framework, with later works by Masamitsu and Yoshimitsu pointing toward the subsequent development of Oei Bizen. Within the broader canon, the Soden Bizen school stands as the fullest realization of the creative possibilities that emerged when two of Japan's greatest forging traditions met and merged. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Motoshige元重 | 1316-1363 | 154 |
| Motoyuki元行 | 1384-1394 | 1 |
| Motoshige元重 | 1288-1333 | 6 |
Bizen in the Kamakura period
Kamakura was Bizen’s summit. Tradition places Ichimonji smiths among Go-Toba’s goban kaji, Mitsutada founded the Osafune line at mid-century, and orders flowed from the court and the warrior government alike. No province holds more National Treasure blades.
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 12,357 (about 1 in 202) 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 siteCooling-off available within one week after arrival, Japan domestic only. Defective items may be returned; no refund if condition differs from sale or item was used.
Price on request
