Sixty years of war between two courts drove blades long and broad, and Osafune met the demand: Kanemitsu and Chōgi led forges serving the provincial warriors who did the fighting, while Sōshū influence arrived with the armies to create Sōden-Bizen.
This *tanto* is a precious work by Bishu Osafune Morikage, who rivaled the Nanbokucho period master Osafune Kanemitsu. Dated Enbun 5 (1360) (659 years ago), it is the oldest dated work by the swordsmith Morikage. Morikage is famous as a master smith among the Bizen Osafune smiths. This *tanto* displays an elegant *sugata* without *sori*, which was rare for that time and reminiscent of the Kamakura period. The *mune* is a *shin-no-mune* influenced by the Soshu-den, and along with Chogi and Kanemitsu, it exhibits the so-called Soden-Bizen style. The *jigane* is a well-forged *itame-hada* with *chikei* appearing in the *ji*. The *hamon* is a *nioi-deki suguha* executed with great skill. The *boshi* shows strength with a *hakikake* tip. As this piece has just emerged into the world for the first time in its original state (*nama*), it is offered at a special bargain price. Such *tanto* by Bishu Osafune Morikage are rare, and this is a masterpiece with a very promising future for great advancement (*daishusse*). Please enjoy this wonderful, old Nanbokucho period dated *tanto* by Morikage.
NihontoWatchNanbokucho · nagasa 23.2cm
Bizen Osafune Ōmiya group (Sōden-Bizen) · Bizen · around 1356-1390
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 18%
2 pieces on the market now
Morikage worked at Osafune in Bizen through the height of the Nanbokuchō period, cutting long, dated signatures such as Bishū Osafune Morikage on tachi, naginata and tantō across the Ōan, Jōji, Eiwa and Kakei years. He is the central figure of the Bizen Ōmiya group, a line traced in the published sources to the remote ancestor Kunimori, who is said to have moved to Bizen from Inokuma Ōmiya in Yamashiro Province in the Kamakura period. Works by the early Ōmiya smiths Kunimori and Sukemori are extremely rare, and within the Nanbokuchō group it is Morikage who left by far the largest body of work and the highest reputation. The NBTHK's published commentary states it plainly, that among the smiths of the line in this period "Morikage left the largest number of works and is also the most skilled"[[c:1]]. His Fujishiro grade is Jō-jō saku.
His characteristic hand is a Sōden-Bizen temper built not on the clove-flower of mainstream Osafune but on a ko-notare base. Into that undulating line he sets gunome, angular elements and a pointed tendency, with ashi and yō entering well, ko-nie adhering, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through the ha. The published sources read the temper as distinctly his own. On a converted-naginata of Tokubetsu Jūyō rank they note that the notare does not become broadly undulating in the manner of Kanemitsu but keeps short foothills and somewhat angular crests, features that, they say, clearly articulate Morikage's individual character. A quiet tell recurs across his work: the nioiguchi tends to a subdued shizumi rather than the bright, showy temper of the leading Osafune names of his day.
The jigane is the constant beneath that range. Over a standing itame mixed with mokume, the grain often opening, he lays a fine ji-nie, chikei entering finely, patches of jifu in the steel, and a Bizen midare-utsuri that stands on his signed and unsigned blades alike. The strength of the nie in both ji and ha is what the judges call the mark of Sōden-Bizen in his work. The bōshi runs midare-komi, finishing in a pointed or small-round turnback with hakikake, and the carvings range from a plain bō-hi through futasuji-hi to bonji and a sankō-ken on the finest pieces.
What the published sources stress above all is the breadth of his range. They describe it as wide, encompassing work in which notare predominates, a florid and changeful midare with chōji and gunome mixed in, work centred on angular gunome, and even a suguha in an Aoe manner. The dated, signed pieces are the spine of this picture, since they fix his hand to specific years from the Ōan era onward, while the suguha register stands at its quiet extreme. Of one signed tachi of Eiwa 2 the commentary remarks that, at a glance, it presents "exactly the kind of suguha manner that calls Aoe and the Unrui smiths to mind"[[c:2]], holding it among the very best of his output and a blade that makes his diversity readily understood. A modern scholarly question hangs over the name itself: on shared workmanship and the reverse-chisel forms of his signature characters, the published sources record a theory, now widely entertained, that this long-signature Morikage may belong instead to an Osafune collateral line connected to Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that the smiths who cut bold, large two-character signatures may be the true Ōmiya hands. The matter is left open for further study.
The larger face of his surviving record is the o-suriage mumei katana attributed to him. These are wide-bodied, the sori shallow and the kissaki extended in the archetypal Nanbokuchō shape, the hamon a ko-notare mixed with gunome and at times small chōji. The published sources affirm them as unmistakable Sōden-Bizen, then place Morikage by contrast: his bright midare-utsuri and subdued, chōji-mixed temper hold him apart from Kanemitsu, whose temper is broader, and from the box-shaped large midare of the Chōgi group. Yet the kinship to Chōgi is real and acknowledged. The commentary on one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, noting how the Ōmiya line tends to be overshadowed by Kanemitsu and Chōgi, says outright that "his workmanship resembles Chōgi and stands beside it"[[c:3]]. He belongs, in short, to the front rank of Nanbokuchō Sōden-Bizen, a maker whose attribution rests on era, school and these careful distinctions rather than on a single flamboyant trait.
For the collector Morikage is an attainable name among the great Nanbokuchō hands, though one to be met with patience. He has no National Treasures; his designated record runs instead through two Important Cultural Properties, three Tokubetsu Jūyō and a long Jūyō roll, ninety blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers in all, with one further Jūyō Bijutsuhin from the prewar designations. His provenance is that of the daimyō houses, his blades carried in the Nabeshima of Hizen, the Uesugi, the Date and the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira, with one piece recorded in Imperial keeping. The published commentary singles out individual works in the strongest terms, calling one converted naginata "an outstanding example among his works of that form"[[c:4]]. Because most designated blades stay in long-held collections, a signed and dated Ōmiya Morikage comes to light only from time to time, and a privately held one is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a securely documented witness to the broad and skilled hand at the centre of the Ōmiya school.
Where Morikage 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
8 pieces on the market now
The Omiya school (大宮) of Bizen traces its name and its blood to Kyoto, not to the Bizen heartland where it eventually settled. The published sources follow the line back to a remote ancestor, Kunimori, who is said to have left Inokuma Omiya in Yamashiro province and moved into Bizen during the Kamakura period, around the Bun'o years. With him the group carried a Yamashiro sensibility into the province of choji, and that transplanted origin remains the key to everything the school later became. Works by the earliest Omiya hands, Kunimori and Sukemori, survive in extremely small numbers, so the line first comes clearly into view at the close of the Kamakura period and then flowers through the height of the Nanbokucho era. Several names recur across these generations, among them Morishige, whose name passed down successive smiths from the late Kamakura into the Muromachi period; but the figure who left by far the largest body of work, and the highest reputation[[c:1]], is Morikage, who worked at Osafune and cut long, dated signatures such as Bishu Osafune Morikage across the Oan, Joji, Eiwa and Kakei years. What binds these smiths into a recognizable group is a particular blend, a temper that reads as Soden-Bizen yet is built differently from the clove-flower of mainstream Osafune. The jigane is the constant beneath the range: a standing itame mixed with mokume, the grain tending to open, with fine ji-nie, chikei entering, patches of jifu in the steel, and a Bizen midare-utsuri that rises on signed and mumei blades alike. Upon that ground the school sets a midare in which gunome, choji and an angular, pointed tendency intermingle, with ashi and yo entering well, nioi deepening to ko-nie, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through the ha. The recurring tells are a Yamashiro-tinged ji carrying that strong nie, and a boshi running midare-komi to a small round or a pointed turnback with hakikake. Within this shared vocabulary the hands diverge.
Morikage tends to a ko-notare base with somewhat angular crests and a subdued, shizumi nioiguchi rather than a showy temper, while his range stretches from that quiet register to a suguha the commentary likens to Aoe and the Unrui smiths[[c:2]]. Morishige favors a bold, opened-waist gunome, the koshi-hiraki pattern mixed with choji into flamboyant undulations. The breadth itself is a school trait, the published sources describing the Omiya saku-iki as wide, taking in notare-dominant work, florid choji-gunome midare, angular gunome, and the Aoe-manner suguha at its quiet edge. To kantei an Omiya blade is to read this fusion of Yamashiro-den refinement and Bizen-den flamboyance, then to separate it from its larger Osafune neighbors. The bright midare-utsuri and the nie-strong ji hold the school apart from Kanemitsu, whose temper undulates more broadly, and from the box-shaped large midare of Chogi, though the kinship to Chogi is real and acknowledged in the commentary, which places Morikage's workmanship beside it[[c:3]]. The school is often overshadowed by those two names, which makes the distinguishing read the more useful: the standing itame with its utsuri, the angular pointed elements, and the comparatively restrained nioiguchi. Morikage stands at the front rank of Nanbokucho Soden-Bizen and carries a Jo-jo saku grade in Fujishiro; his provenance runs through the daimyo houses, the Nabeshima of Hizen, the Uesugi, the Date and the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira, with a piece recorded in Imperial keeping. A modern scholarly question hangs over the name itself, the published sources recording a theory, now widely entertained, that the long-signature Morikage may belong to an Osafune collateral line connected to Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that the smiths who cut bold, large two-character signatures may be the true Omiya hands; the matter is left open. By the late Muromachi the distinctive Omiya traits fade, the Shinkuro generation of Morishige showing no difference from the general Sue-Bizen type, evidence that the subsidiary line was at last absorbed into the dominant Osafune school, a trajectory that gives the group its documentary value for the study of how Bizen's lesser lineages were drawn into the mainstream. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Morikage盛景 | 1356-1390 | 92 |
| Morikage盛景 | 1299-1302 | 5 |
| Tomomori友盛 | 1156-1159 | 0 |
| Tsugumori次盛 | 1338-1342 | 0 |
| Tsugumori次盛 | 1278-1288 | 0 |
Sixty years of war between two courts drove blades long and broad, and Osafune met the demand: Kanemitsu and Chōgi led forges serving the provincial warriors who did the fighting, while Sōshū influence arrived with the armies to create Sōden-Bizen.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
This *tanto* is a precious work by Bishu Osafune Morikage, who rivaled the Nanbokucho period master Osafune Kanemitsu. Dated Enbun 5 (1360) (659 years ago), it is the oldest dated work by the swordsmith Morikage. Morikage is famous as a master smith among the Bizen Osafune smiths. This *tanto* displays an elegant *sugata* without *sori*, which was rare for that time and reminiscent of the Kamakura period. The *mune* is a *shin-no-mune* influenced by the Soshu-den, and along with Chogi and Kanemitsu, it exhibits the so-called Soden-Bizen style. The *jigane* is a well-forged *itame-hada* with *chikei* appearing in the *ji*. The *hamon* is a *nioi-deki suguha* executed with great skill. The *boshi* shows strength with a *hakikake* tip. As this piece has just emerged into the world for the first time in its original state (*nama*), it is offered at a special bargain price. Such *tanto* by Bishu Osafune Morikage are rare, and this is a masterpiece with a very promising future for great advancement (*daishusse*). Please enjoy this wonderful, old Nanbokucho period dated *tanto* by Morikage.
NihontoWatchNanbokucho · nagasa 23.2cm
Bizen Osafune Ōmiya group (Sōden-Bizen) · Bizen · around 1356-1390
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 18%
2 pieces on the market now
Morikage worked at Osafune in Bizen through the height of the Nanbokuchō period, cutting long, dated signatures such as Bishū Osafune Morikage on tachi, naginata and tantō across the Ōan, Jōji, Eiwa and Kakei years. He is the central figure of the Bizen Ōmiya group, a line traced in the published sources to the remote ancestor Kunimori, who is said to have moved to Bizen from Inokuma Ōmiya in Yamashiro Province in the Kamakura period. Works by the early Ōmiya smiths Kunimori and Sukemori are extremely rare, and within the Nanbokuchō group it is Morikage who left by far the largest body of work and the highest reputation. The NBTHK's published commentary states it plainly, that among the smiths of the line in this period "Morikage left the largest number of works and is also the most skilled"[[c:1]]. His Fujishiro grade is Jō-jō saku.
His characteristic hand is a Sōden-Bizen temper built not on the clove-flower of mainstream Osafune but on a ko-notare base. Into that undulating line he sets gunome, angular elements and a pointed tendency, with ashi and yō entering well, ko-nie adhering, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through the ha. The published sources read the temper as distinctly his own. On a converted-naginata of Tokubetsu Jūyō rank they note that the notare does not become broadly undulating in the manner of Kanemitsu but keeps short foothills and somewhat angular crests, features that, they say, clearly articulate Morikage's individual character. A quiet tell recurs across his work: the nioiguchi tends to a subdued shizumi rather than the bright, showy temper of the leading Osafune names of his day.
The jigane is the constant beneath that range. Over a standing itame mixed with mokume, the grain often opening, he lays a fine ji-nie, chikei entering finely, patches of jifu in the steel, and a Bizen midare-utsuri that stands on his signed and unsigned blades alike. The strength of the nie in both ji and ha is what the judges call the mark of Sōden-Bizen in his work. The bōshi runs midare-komi, finishing in a pointed or small-round turnback with hakikake, and the carvings range from a plain bō-hi through futasuji-hi to bonji and a sankō-ken on the finest pieces.
What the published sources stress above all is the breadth of his range. They describe it as wide, encompassing work in which notare predominates, a florid and changeful midare with chōji and gunome mixed in, work centred on angular gunome, and even a suguha in an Aoe manner. The dated, signed pieces are the spine of this picture, since they fix his hand to specific years from the Ōan era onward, while the suguha register stands at its quiet extreme. Of one signed tachi of Eiwa 2 the commentary remarks that, at a glance, it presents "exactly the kind of suguha manner that calls Aoe and the Unrui smiths to mind"[[c:2]], holding it among the very best of his output and a blade that makes his diversity readily understood. A modern scholarly question hangs over the name itself: on shared workmanship and the reverse-chisel forms of his signature characters, the published sources record a theory, now widely entertained, that this long-signature Morikage may belong instead to an Osafune collateral line connected to Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that the smiths who cut bold, large two-character signatures may be the true Ōmiya hands. The matter is left open for further study.
The larger face of his surviving record is the o-suriage mumei katana attributed to him. These are wide-bodied, the sori shallow and the kissaki extended in the archetypal Nanbokuchō shape, the hamon a ko-notare mixed with gunome and at times small chōji. The published sources affirm them as unmistakable Sōden-Bizen, then place Morikage by contrast: his bright midare-utsuri and subdued, chōji-mixed temper hold him apart from Kanemitsu, whose temper is broader, and from the box-shaped large midare of the Chōgi group. Yet the kinship to Chōgi is real and acknowledged. The commentary on one Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, noting how the Ōmiya line tends to be overshadowed by Kanemitsu and Chōgi, says outright that "his workmanship resembles Chōgi and stands beside it"[[c:3]]. He belongs, in short, to the front rank of Nanbokuchō Sōden-Bizen, a maker whose attribution rests on era, school and these careful distinctions rather than on a single flamboyant trait.
For the collector Morikage is an attainable name among the great Nanbokuchō hands, though one to be met with patience. He has no National Treasures; his designated record runs instead through two Important Cultural Properties, three Tokubetsu Jūyō and a long Jūyō roll, ninety blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers in all, with one further Jūyō Bijutsuhin from the prewar designations. His provenance is that of the daimyō houses, his blades carried in the Nabeshima of Hizen, the Uesugi, the Date and the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira, with one piece recorded in Imperial keeping. The published commentary singles out individual works in the strongest terms, calling one converted naginata "an outstanding example among his works of that form"[[c:4]]. Because most designated blades stay in long-held collections, a signed and dated Ōmiya Morikage comes to light only from time to time, and a privately held one is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a securely documented witness to the broad and skilled hand at the centre of the Ōmiya school.
Where Morikage 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
8 pieces on the market now
The Omiya school (大宮) of Bizen traces its name and its blood to Kyoto, not to the Bizen heartland where it eventually settled. The published sources follow the line back to a remote ancestor, Kunimori, who is said to have left Inokuma Omiya in Yamashiro province and moved into Bizen during the Kamakura period, around the Bun'o years. With him the group carried a Yamashiro sensibility into the province of choji, and that transplanted origin remains the key to everything the school later became. Works by the earliest Omiya hands, Kunimori and Sukemori, survive in extremely small numbers, so the line first comes clearly into view at the close of the Kamakura period and then flowers through the height of the Nanbokucho era. Several names recur across these generations, among them Morishige, whose name passed down successive smiths from the late Kamakura into the Muromachi period; but the figure who left by far the largest body of work, and the highest reputation[[c:1]], is Morikage, who worked at Osafune and cut long, dated signatures such as Bishu Osafune Morikage across the Oan, Joji, Eiwa and Kakei years. What binds these smiths into a recognizable group is a particular blend, a temper that reads as Soden-Bizen yet is built differently from the clove-flower of mainstream Osafune. The jigane is the constant beneath the range: a standing itame mixed with mokume, the grain tending to open, with fine ji-nie, chikei entering, patches of jifu in the steel, and a Bizen midare-utsuri that rises on signed and mumei blades alike. Upon that ground the school sets a midare in which gunome, choji and an angular, pointed tendency intermingle, with ashi and yo entering well, nioi deepening to ko-nie, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji running through the ha. The recurring tells are a Yamashiro-tinged ji carrying that strong nie, and a boshi running midare-komi to a small round or a pointed turnback with hakikake. Within this shared vocabulary the hands diverge.
Morikage tends to a ko-notare base with somewhat angular crests and a subdued, shizumi nioiguchi rather than a showy temper, while his range stretches from that quiet register to a suguha the commentary likens to Aoe and the Unrui smiths[[c:2]]. Morishige favors a bold, opened-waist gunome, the koshi-hiraki pattern mixed with choji into flamboyant undulations. The breadth itself is a school trait, the published sources describing the Omiya saku-iki as wide, taking in notare-dominant work, florid choji-gunome midare, angular gunome, and the Aoe-manner suguha at its quiet edge. To kantei an Omiya blade is to read this fusion of Yamashiro-den refinement and Bizen-den flamboyance, then to separate it from its larger Osafune neighbors. The bright midare-utsuri and the nie-strong ji hold the school apart from Kanemitsu, whose temper undulates more broadly, and from the box-shaped large midare of Chogi, though the kinship to Chogi is real and acknowledged in the commentary, which places Morikage's workmanship beside it[[c:3]]. The school is often overshadowed by those two names, which makes the distinguishing read the more useful: the standing itame with its utsuri, the angular pointed elements, and the comparatively restrained nioiguchi. Morikage stands at the front rank of Nanbokucho Soden-Bizen and carries a Jo-jo saku grade in Fujishiro; his provenance runs through the daimyo houses, the Nabeshima of Hizen, the Uesugi, the Date and the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira, with a piece recorded in Imperial keeping. A modern scholarly question hangs over the name itself, the published sources recording a theory, now widely entertained, that the long-signature Morikage may belong to an Osafune collateral line connected to Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that the smiths who cut bold, large two-character signatures may be the true Omiya hands; the matter is left open. By the late Muromachi the distinctive Omiya traits fade, the Shinkuro generation of Morishige showing no difference from the general Sue-Bizen type, evidence that the subsidiary line was at last absorbed into the dominant Osafune school, a trajectory that gives the group its documentary value for the study of how Bizen's lesser lineages were drawn into the mainstream. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Morikage盛景 | 1356-1390 | 92 |
| Morikage盛景 | 1299-1302 | 5 |
| Tomomori友盛 | 1156-1159 | 0 |
| Tsugumori次盛 | 1338-1342 | 0 |
| Tsugumori次盛 | 1278-1288 | 0 |
Sixty years of war between two courts drove blades long and broad, and Osafune met the demand: Kanemitsu and Chōgi led forges serving the provincial warriors who did the fighting, while Sōshū influence arrived with the armies to create Sōden-Bizen.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
