NihontoWatchThe Bizen no Kuni Omiya school is said to have begun when the school's distant ancestor Kunimori moved from Yamashiro no Kuni Inokuma Omiya to Bizen, and Morikage, who signs with long mei such as "Bishu Osafune Morikage," has been considered its representative smith; however, in recent years, a new theory has emerged suggesting that due to similarities in workmanship and the use of gyaku-tagane in mei characters, this smith is actually a smith of an Osafune collateral line connected to the lineages of Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that rather, the smiths who sign with bold, large-scale two-character mei such as "Morikage" and "Moritsugu" are the true Omiya smiths following the lineage of Kunimori, prompting a re-examination of the traditional theory. This katana has itame mixed with moku and nagare-hada, with thick ji-nie and prominent chikei, and a faint utsuri appears; the hamon is a mix of various elements including ko-notare, gunome, choji, and togari-ba, becoming somewhat angular in places, with active ashi and yo, and is nioi-gachi with ko-nie, kinsuji, and sunagashi, while the boshi is sugu with the tip having a slight yakizume style. The yakihaba is wide, and the intense midare-ba that nearly reaches the shinogi is impressive; the rich variations of hataraki within the ha are captivating to gaze upon and never grow tiresome. Both the mihaba and kasane are substantial, and this is a magnificent hitotsu for which designation as Juyo Token would likely be only a matter of time.
Certificate reading — 無銘（大宮）
NihontoWatchOffered by Toushin
6 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Bizen-den · Bizen
6 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 Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection. 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 | 93 |
| Morikage盛景 | 1299-1302 | 6 |
| Norifusa則房 | 1199-1201 | 0 |
| Tsugumori次盛 | 1278-1288 | 0 |
| Tomomori友盛 | 1156-1159 | 0 |
Bizen in the Nanbokuchō period
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.
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