Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch肥前國忠吉八代は佐賀藩士古川与兵衛道弘の次男で享和元年の生まれ。本名を舜一郎といい、母は六代忠吉の娘。病弱で子のなかった七代忠廣の養子となって家督を継いだ。優れた素質は一門の後援もあって開花し、宗家の責務を全うしている。殖産興業に熱心であった名君鍋島斉正の側近くに、八代忠吉の実弟で和歌、絵画等に精通した文化人古川松根が仕えており、その縁により斉正の反射炉造営や鉄製大炮の製造を軸とする国防事業に鉄のスペシャリストとして参加し、作刀以外でも大いに力を発揮したのであった(注)。 天保頃の作とみられるこの刀は、重ねが厚く、元先の身幅も広く鋒が大きく延びた、初代忠吉の雄刀をみるが如き堂々の体配。小板目鍛えの地鉄は良く詰んで小粒の地沸が厚く付き、弾力感のある小糠肌となる。直刃の刃文は小沸が付いて刃縁きっぱりと明るく、刃境に小形の金線が躍動し、足と葉が盛んに入り、刃中は匂で澄み冴える。焼の深い帽子は、やや突き上げて小丸に返る。初代と同じ浅い勝手上がり鑢の茎に、力強く自信に満ちた銘字が刻されている。肥前刀の伝統を守り、国防事業にも尽力した八代忠吉の力作である。 注...自身も剣・軍学・古実・俳諧・茶道・立花の諸芸を得意とし、また洋書から得た知識を鍛錬に活用するなど進取の気概の持ち主であった。また鍋島侯より任官を勧められても益なしと辞退するなど実利の人でもあったことがわかる。
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Shinto · Hizen · around 1830-1844
Fujishiro Chu-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 76%
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Shinto · Hizen
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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 | 61 |
| Tadahiro忠廣 | 1633-1693 | 133 |
| Tadakuni忠國 | 1648-1652 | 32 |
| Masahiro正廣 | 1624-1655 | 30 |
Hizen: a domain enterprise
Hizen swords were a domain enterprise: the Nabeshima sent Tadayoshi to study under Umetada Myōju around 1596, then built a licensed school around him. Nine generations carried its famously consistent konuka-hada work into the Meiji era.
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, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.