Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThe Higo no Kuni Enju school, with Enju Taro Kunimura, said to be the grandson of Rai Kuniyuki, as its founder, flourished greatly in the Kikuchi district of that province from the late Kamakura period through the Nanboku-cho period. This school produced many master smiths such as Kunisuke, Kunitoki, Kuniyasu, and Kuniyoshi, who are collectively referred to as the Enju school; supporting the tradition of being the retained smiths of the Kikuchi clan (Southern Court side), the nengo on their works are all cut with Southern Court eras, and due to the name Enju, it was treasured as a lucky charm meaning "extending one's longevity," and like the Jumyo of Seki, it was used for gifts between samurai families. This katana is o-suriage, and its original nagasa would likely have easily been around 2 shaku 7 sun. The difference between the moto-haba and saki-haba is well-proportioned, and the chu-kissaki has a slight feeling of being extended. The jigane is ko-itame with jinie, fine chikei enters, and there is a faint feeling of utsuri; the hamon has a light and soft feel, mixed with a tightening of the nioiguchi, with ko-ashi entering, somewhat wide ashi entering, forming ko-midare, and the boshi is sugu with a large, round kaeri at the saki. Although coarse areas can be seen in the jigane, it has maintained its brave figure to this day, transcending a long span of 700 years; the fact that there is no yakiba running off and the yakiba of the boshi remains firmly can truly be called a miracle. The accompanying koshirae has no rattling in the tsuka and is firm as if sticking to the hand. The tsuba-nari is also slight and is not something of concern for practical use. Patterns thought to be a type of sekka-mon are scattered over black shiwagawa-nuri, and from that design, one can glimpse that it was the worn sword of a high-ranking joshi. However, what is truly regrettable is that there are traces of someone who did not know the true value of this sword before it was appraised using it for iai practice with poor skill, and the koiguchi of the precious, luxurious koshirae has been shaved and opened up. I would like to strongly add here once again that antique koshirae are originally cultural heritages with historical value and should never be repurposed for practice use. Furthermore, this koshirae is repairable, and considering the restoration costs including the re-wrapping of the tsuka-ito, we are offering it at a specially reduced price this time.
Offered by Toushin
15 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Yamashiro-den · Higo
15 pieces on the market now
Among the provincial lines that carried the Kyoto manner beyond Yamashiro, the Enju (延寿) school of Higo province grew up at Kumafu in the Kikuchi District, working from the close of the Kamakura period through the Nanbokuchō era. Its founder, Tarō Kunimura, is transmitted in the prevailing account as the son of Hiromura of the Yamato Senjuin line, who married a daughter of Rai Kuniyuki of Yamashiro; by that marriage Kunimura is held to be Kuniyuki's grandson in the female line and a pupil of the Rai workshop (one early text instead places him in the gate of Rai Kunitoshi). The school name reads on the same characters as the Rai line itself, and from that double descent, Yamashiro through the Rai marriage and Yamato through the Senjuin side, the family took its character. Around the founder a cluster of named smiths arose almost at once, Kuniyoshi, Kunitoki, Kuniyasu, Kunitomo, Kunisuke, Kuninobu and Kunitsuna among them, the Enju line attached to the Kikuchi clan and loyal to the Southern Court, so that the dated blades carry that history in their Southern-Court eras. The published sources describe Enju work as one that broadly resembles the Rai school[[c:1]], refined in suguha yet cooler and whiter than its Kyoto parent, and they name the provincial accents by which the two are separated. The forging is an itame or closely packed ko-itame that flows toward the edge into masame, the grain standing a little, with fine ji-nie laid on and delicate chikei entering; over it rises a whitish shirake-utsuri, the surest single Enju tell, the cool reflection of a Kyushu steel that is not quite the bright Rai jigane. The temper is a chū-suguha or narrower hoso-suguha, the nioiguchi carried somewhat shizumi (sunken and quiet), often breaking into nijūba, the doubled line that recurs across the line; ko-ashi, yō, ko-nie, fine sunagashi and kinsuji play within it, the activity gentler than the brighter Rai suguha. The bōshi turns back on a larger radius than Rai's tight ko-maru, a shallow ō-maru with a short kaeri.
The signature is a tool of attribution: across the line the right half within the kuni (国) enclosure is cut in an ear-shaped form, a calligraphic habit the sources say cannot be confused with another school. Against true Rai, the school is read by its masame-lean, its whitish utsuri, its sinking nioiguchi and its quieter internal work, the ji and ha running a degree softer than the Yamashiro line. To kantei an Enju blade is to weigh those provincial accents against the Rai air it carries: a wheel-like wa-zori and Kyoto refinement may recall the parent at a glance, but the nagare in the ji, the shirake-utsuri, the subdued nioiguchi and the ear-shaped kuni settle the attribution, and the level of the work then narrows it to a hand. The founder Kunimura sets the quiet register and signs the slender, sharply tapering tachi the sources call distinctive even within the school; among the later smiths, Kunitoki survives in relative number and runs his suguha the busiest with ko-gunome and kinsuji, Kuniyasu is the most nie-laden and brightest, Kunisuke cuts the boldest chisel and hardens a unique flaming bōshi on his wide pieces, while Kuniyoshi, Kuninobu and the various other Kuni- smiths work the same vocabulary, the best of them refining the steel to a clarity that escapes the school's whitish thinness. The corpus runs mostly to slender signed tachi and to ō-suriage mumei katana attributed on appraisal, with broad sunobi tantō in the Nanbokuchō phase, the work confined to long blades in the founder's case. Provenance is unusually grand for a provincial line: blades pass through Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and rest in the Hosokawa, Date, Uesugi, Owari and Mito Tokugawa houses, with examples held today by the Sano, Tokugawa, Seikadō and other institutions. A signed ubu Enju tachi is among the rarer encounters in Higo work; most survive as the mumei attribution, held as heritage rather than offered. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunimura國村 | 1275-1278 | 15 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1317-1353 | 32 |
| Kunisuke國資 | 1346-1370 | 22 |
| Kuniyasu國泰 | 1329-1331 | 16 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1275-1278 | 7 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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 siteAs a rule we do not accept returns, except when we have sent a different item from the one ordered or when there is a significant discrepancy between the description and the item. If you wish to return an item, please contact us within 3 days of its arrival and then send it back.
¥770,000
Certificate reading — 無銘（延寿）