War at home and trade abroad made Muromachi Bizen the busiest forge region in Japan: a century of Sengoku demand after the Ōnin War, and export missions to Ming China carrying blades by the tens of thousands.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThe Hoshu Takada school was a group that flourished around Bungo Takada (present-day Takada Village, Oita District, within Oita City) during the Nanbokucho era, with Tomoyuki, a pupil of Chikuzen Samonji around the Kenmu era, as the founder. Because many works from the koto period include the Taira surname in the mei, they are referred to as Taira Takada, and since the shinto period onwards they began to include the Fujiwara surname in the mei, they are generally called Fujiwara Takada. Since ancient times, it is a school with a high reputation for practical swords, favored by many military commanders as swords for martial use, and during the Sengoku period, they became the retained smiths of Otomo Sorin of Bungo Province, and in response to the demands of powerful clans throughout Kyushu, they prospered to a degree rivaling the Seki smiths of Mino Province and the Osafune smiths of Bizen Province. The style is wide-ranging, including works that followed Bizen and Soshu, Mino-den style sanbonsugi and togari gunome, and well-shaped works with Yamashiro-style koshizori featuring suguha; the suguha is characterized by the activity of yo described as looking like it was pricked by a needle in the hachū, and upon entering the shinto period, they set up bellows and forged swords in places such as Buzen Kokura and Bungo Nakatsu, centered around Takada. This katana is not suriage but ubu, and as can be inferred from the somewhat short nakago and short length, it has the taihai of a katate-uchi that was popular in the middle Muromachi period, with a moderate difference between the motohaba and sakihaba, a well-proportioned figure with the kissaki slightly extended, katana-hi with marudome on the omote and ura, the mokume-kitae jigane is slightly hadadachi, the hamon is a nioiguchi bright and clear konie-hon'i suguha, with ashi frequently entering the hachū forming a suguha-style ko-gunome midare, the yakihaba widens from below the yokote, and the boshi on the omote and ura is sugu returning in maru. Because it has hi, it can also be enjoyed as a sword for martial use for a youth. It is a sword with good balance in the hand.
Certificate reading — 無銘（高田）
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29 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Bizen-den · Bungo
29 pieces on the market now
In Bungo Province on Kyushu, the early Kamakura masters Sadahide and Yukihira appeared and then, for a span, distinguished makers ceased; the setsumei repeatedly mark this gap before the line that became the Takada school took hold. The school was founded in the Nanbokuchō period by Tomoyuki, who arose at Takada Manor (Takada-shō) and signed in the long form "Hōshū Takada-shō Fujiwara Tomoyuki," with dated work surviving from the Shōhei (1349) and Jōji eras into the 1360s. Beside him the registers place Tokiyuki, said to be his son or disciple, and Masayuki, thought to belong to a separate line, whose Kentoku 2 (1371) tantō carries Southern Court dating and a Kurikara relief following the example of Yukihira. From these Nanbokuchō roots the lineage ran continuously through Muromachi and on into the shintō era. The naming itself tracks the periods: Nanbokuchō smiths prefixed Fujiwara; from Muromachi they signed Taira and shared the characters 盛・守・鎮・統, so the group is broadly called Taira-Takada (Heike or Hira-Takada); late in the line they returned to Fujiwara, and that stream, carried into the Edo period, is distinguished as Fujiwara-Takada. Named Muromachi hands in the setsumei include Taira Naomori (a ken dated Ōnin 3, 1469), Taira Nagamori, Takada Tatemori (Meiō 10, 1501), Taira Shizunori, and Fujiwara Shinkiyo. Across the blades a consistent vocabulary recurs. The jihada is itame mixed with mokume, frequently tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi) and, in the early work, drifting toward masame or nagare; ji-nie and chikei appear, the steel often carries a darkish kanagu tone with patches of jifu, and a whitish shirake-utsuri (sometimes a faint midare-utsuri) stands out conspicuously.
The temper runs from suguha and chū-suguha mixed with ko-gunome up to gunome-midare, with nie adhering and ashi and yō entering; kinsuji and sunagashi run through, and in fuller-tempered work tobiyaki, muneyaki and hitatsura develop (as in Nagamori's Eishō wakizashi). Founder-period Tomoyuki work is recognized by angular gunome spaced at wide intervals, an overall subdued (shizumi) impression, strong shirake with jifu, and a manner the setsumei liken to Sue-Sa and the Samonji group; the school as a whole shows Bizen-leaning utsuri, Yamato-tinged masame and nagare, and at its summit, in Shizunori, work judged to take Rai Kuniyuki as its model. Branch and period read off the signature prefix and the shape: deep curvature with an arched, upturned profile through mid-Muromachi, then broader blades with shallower sori and an extended chū-kissaki in the later phase. " Among the smiths the setsumei single out Nagamori as the most accomplished of the Heike-Takada, a suguha specialist with notably good jigane and skilled horimono, his name carried across several generations and dated freely in the Eishō and Daiei eras; one of his blades was bestowed by Shimazu Tsugutoyo of Kagoshima on the retainer Honda Chikaaki, and Tatemori is rated near him. The line reached into early shintō through Kunifusa, a disciple of Shizumasa of Takada who moved to Uwajima in Iyo, served Date Hidemune, and worked in a Horikawa manner. Provenance runs through the descriptions: Masayuki's tantō was transmitted in the Shōnai Sakai family with a Hon'ami Kōchū origami of Kyōhō 6 and recorded in the Kōzan oshigata and Umetada Meikan, and Nagamori's tachi survives with a maki-e and raden scabbard. The cutting-oriented robustness of the work, weighty in hand with thick kasane and a sturdy build, reflects the taste of an age of warfare, and these blades served as practical arms across Kyushu. The setsumei are candid that Takada has drawn a generally low evaluation in the field, and several of the registered pieces are framed expressly as answering that judgment, restoring the standing of a long lineage on the strength of its best surviving work. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tomoyuki友行 | 1350-1367 | 15 |
| Kunifusa國房 | 1615-1624 | 5 |
| Akiyuki鑑行 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
| Kagenari景也 | 1661-1673 | 0 |
| Chikayuki及行 | 1661-1673 | 0 |
Bizen in the Muromachi period
War at home and trade abroad made Muromachi Bizen the busiest forge region in Japan: a century of Sengoku demand after the Ōnin War, and export missions to Ming China carrying blades by the tens of thousands.
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