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About the school

Shimosaka School下坂派

The Shimosaka name began not as a single hand but as a trademark shared by a band of Echizen smiths at the dawn of the *shinto* era, and the designated record gathers their work under that one signature rather than parsing it into individuals. The published sources read the early inscriptions, the generic Echizen no Kuni Shimosaka and the titled Higo Daijo Fujiwara Shimosaka, as the product of a group, of which the first-generation Yasutsugu served as the representative. Born in Shimosaka village of Sakata district in Omi, Yasutsugu moved to Echizen under the patronage of Yuki Hideyasu, signing in his early years Higo no Daijo Shimosaka before his Keicho 10 to 11 summons to Edo, where he forged before Ieyasu and Hidetada and received the character Yasu and the right to cut the Tokugawa hollyhock crest on his *nakago*. The titled signature was carried by several Echizen hands at once, and the texts list Yasutsugu, Sadakuni and Kanenori among the smiths whose chisel movement and brush intent are too alike to part on present evidence. From this band the Echizen Yasutsugu line descended, dividing after the second generation into the Edo and Echizen Shimosaka houses, and around it formed the deep relief carving the province made its own. The school is recognized first in its steel. The forging is *itame* mixed with *mokume* that stands and opens, often flowing into *nagare*, carrying thick *ji-nie* and fine *chikei*, the *kane* taking on the blackish cast the sources name outright as Echizen-gane; the same dark, standing *jihada* recurs from Yasutsugu through his son, through Sadatsugu, Shigetaka and the unnamed Shimosaka hands, and the commentary returns to it as the group's signature. Over it the *hamon* favors a *suguha* to *chu-suguha* or shallow *notare* into which linked *gunome* and *ko-gunome* mix, *ko-ashi* and *yo* entering, the *nie* thick and gathering unevenly into rough patches, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* streaming through, the *nioiguchi* tending to a sinking *shizumi*. The *boshi* is the steadiest tell, running to a *ko-maru* swept in *hakikake* and turning back long, with a *Sanpin*-flavored reminiscence of the Mishina and Echizen-Seki inheritance. Yet the house is not uniform: Sadakuni works an austere *suguha* over an unusually refined ji with little of the blackish *mokume*, Sadatsugu fires the brightest, most *choji*-laden *midare* of the circle, and the third generation cleans the forging and brightens the *nioiguchi* toward his Edo contemporaries. Binding the registers is the carving, the deep *Echizen-bori* and *Kinai-bori* of *kurikara*, Fudo Myoo, *bonji* and *gomabashi* set in relief within the *hi*, which Sadakuni may have first supplied to Yasutsugu's blades. For the collector the school rewards reading by register rather than by a single famous holding. Yasutsugu is its summit, rated Jo-jo saku, retained smith to the shogunal house, whose *Sadamune* and *Toshiro* copies (the Namazuo, the lost Oyako, the Shishi) show his own Echizen hand under the model, and whose best katana carry the possession inscriptions of his patron Honda Hida no Kami Narishige and provenance in the Echizen and Kishu Tokugawa houses. The second generation follows so faithfully that his finest blades part from the father chiefly by the form of the character *tsugu*; the Edo third generation continues the *suguha* and *ko-notare* manners with a straight *yakidashi* and a Hojoji affinity. Around them the specialists define the edges of the idiom: Sadakuni and his quiet *suguha* with a pair of *tanto* in the Imperial Collection, Sadatsugu with his Narishige-crested cutting-test blades, and Shigetaka, the most skilled of Yasutsugu's pupils, whose chestnut-tailed *kurijiri nakago* and Kinai carving (the Honebami and Hossho copies among his masterworks) name him at a glance and whose finest work approaches the master. A signed Shimosaka blade, whether a titled Yasutsugu beneath the *aoi-mon*, a named piece by one of the band, or a Higo Daijo pre-Yasutsugu register, comes to market only from time to time, valued as the wellspring from which the Echizen Yasutsugu line and its carving tradition arose.

Choshuya

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