The Yamato schools grew up in the shadow of Nara’s great monasteries: Tegai took its name from a gate of Tōdaiji. Their austere masame and quiet suguha are a temple aesthetic, prized ever since for exactly that restraint.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch刃長69.8センチ 反り1.43センチ 元幅30.1ミリ 元重ね6.8ミリ 物打幅24.0ミリ 物打重ね5.1ミリ 横手位置幅20.4ミリ 松葉先重ね3.8ミリ 裸身重量659グラム。 鎌倉後期 The latter period of Kamakura era 昭和37年9月25日 鳥取県登録 附属 特別保存刀剣鑑定書、素銅地金鍍金はばき、白鞘 手掻派は東大寺に所属した刀工集団で、東大寺西の正門、転害門の門前に居住していたことから、手掻と呼称されています。大和五派中最も規模が大きく繁栄し、且つ技量が安定している一派として知られ、手貝町、包永町などの地名を今に残しています。 手掻派の始祖は鎌倉時代中期の正応(1288)頃の包永で、名物『児手柏』(大正十二年の関東大震災で焼失)や岩崎家所蔵品の国宝、他に重要文化財6口が知られているものの、これらの指定品は磨り上げられて茎尻に二字銘が残されたものであります。 手掻派を代表する刀工としては、他に包吉、包清、包友、包利などがおり、正宗十哲の一人、兼氏(初銘包氏)も手掻派に属したといわれており、同派は南北朝期を経て室町時代まで続き、南北朝時代までの作品を『手掻』、應永以降室町時代の作品を『末手掻』と呼称し、大和五派の中で最も沸が強く、地鉄が冴えるのが特徴とされています。 この刀は大きく磨り上げられるも、今尚二尺三寸余の刃長を堂々と誇っており、小板目流れて柾がかり、良く練れて詰むも少しく肌立った地鉄には、淡く映りが立ち、匂口明るく冴えた直刃を焼き上げ、指表の物打やや上に短く愛らしい打除を見せています。 重要刀剣審査未受審刀です。お客様の手によって出世させて下さい。 各種クレジットカード、ショッピングローンによる分割購入も承っております。お気軽にお申し付け下さい。
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Yamato-den · Yamato
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Outside the Tegaimon (転害門), the western great gate of Todai-ji, a lineage of smiths forged for the temple through the closing decades of the Kamakura period, and from that monastic ground rose the Tegai school (手掻), one of the five branches of the Yamato-den. The published commentary of the NBTHK names Kanenaga (包永) its founder, placing his activity around the Shoo era (1288 to 1293) while reading his own workmanship, and a tanto by an early hand of his circle dated Karyaku 4 (1329), as evidence of a beginning reaching back further into middle and late Kamakura. The school took its name from the gate by which it worked, and the long Nanto-ju and Tegai-ju signatures cut by its later smiths keep that Nara setting on record. Among the five Yamato traditions Tegai was the largest in scale, and as the Muromachi years advanced it appears to have absorbed the others so that it alone effectively continued, a span the surviving generations of Kanenaga, Kanekiyo (包清), Kanetsugu (包次), Kanetoshi (包俊), Kanesada (包貞), and Kanemasa (包真) carry from the late Kamakura into the Eisho and Kyoroku eras. A Tegai blade is read first in the steel and then along the edge. The forging is itame mixed with mokume that flows into nagare and inclines toward masame near the ha, standing open in a hada-dachi character, with thick ji-nie, chikei entering frequently, and at times a whitish shirake utsuri toward the mune. Over that ground runs a suguha base, seldom left plain, taking in shallow notare, ko-midare, and ko-gunome; the habuchi frays into hotsure, with uchinoke, kuichigai-ba, nijuba, yubashiri drifting into the ji, and sunagashi and kinsuji sweeping through. The boshi answers in kind, swept with hakikake and finishing yakizume or turning back in a small ko-maru. Within this shared vocabulary the corpus divides along the Ko-Tegai and Sue-Tegai axis.
The founder's hand, the Ko-Tegai prime, carries the strongest nie among Yamato works, round and lustrous, over a bright and clear jigane, with many tachi holding a dignified, high-toned bearing; the Meibutsu Konotegashiwa Kanenaga even tempers omote and ura differently. The later Sue-Tegai generations part company, the steel turning whitish, the nioiguchi tightening toward ko-nie, and the temper broadening at the last toward ogunome and a hitatsura tendency near Muramasa, as in the late Tegai-ju Kanekiyo blades. To kantei a Tegai blade is to place it within Yamato and then along its own line. Against Senjuin, Shikkake, Taima, and Hosho, all working the same standing masame-inclined grain under fraying suguha, Tegai is told by the strength and brightness of its nie; Honma noted of the first generation a sparkle at times recalling Awataguchi Hisakuni, and one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi was read as rivaling the upper Soshu masters. Where Hosho runs a near-pure masame and a plain edge, and where Shikkake Norinaga strings his ko-gunome into connected rows, Kanenaga holds the suguha-cho through its shallow notare and lets yubashiri, uchinoke, and nijuba play above the habuchi with unusual freedom; the Rai suguha of Yamashiro, by contrast, runs clean over a close ko-itame. Rated Jo-jo saku by Fujishiro, Kanenaga stands at the head of the school, his signed tachi (the character Kane compressed, the second vertical of Naga drawn out long) unusually numerous for so early a smith, though most survive suriage and the o-suriage mumei attributions ride on the quality of the nie. The provenance is deep, running through shrines, the Tokugawa, Date, and Hachisuka families and, formerly, the Imperial Family, with recorded holders including the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokugawa Art Museum. The later names hold mainly to the Juyo register and to private and designated hands, valued as fixed reference points for the Yamato-den, where the founder's bright, heavy nie over standing Yamato steel remains the measure by which the whole school is judged. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanenaga包永 | 1288-1312 | 66 |
| Kanekiyo包清 | 1362-1370 | 8 |
| Kanetoshi包俊 | 1381-1384 | 4 |
| Kanetsugu包次 | 1317-1333 | 4 |
| Kanekiyo包清 | 1429-1441 | 3 |
Yamato in the Kamakura period
The Yamato schools grew up in the shadow of Nara’s great monasteries: Tegai took its name from a gate of Tōdaiji. Their austere masame and quiet suguha are a temple aesthetic, prized ever since for exactly that restraint.
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.
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