NihontoWatch二唐主呂義信刀匠は、陸奥国津軽藩（青森県弘前市）の初代：津軽為信公の頃より、代々にわたり津軽藩の御用鍛冶を務めてきました。近代においても、二唐一門は、国俊（昭弘同人）・義信・義弘らが陸軍軍刀技術奨励会の上位に名を連ねております。 四代目の二唐義信は明治十四年生まれです。 明治九年の廃刀令後の刀工受難の時代の中、軍刀鍛冶として再び開花させ、義信や子の国俊・義弘・国次・国吉などの刀匠が活躍しています。 当時、軍刀製作指導のため青森を訪れた栗原昭秀は二唐家を拠点とし、青森県の優秀な人材に作刀指導を行っていました。 特に二唐家に滞在していたこともあり、二唐義信父子には他の刀工では聞けない技を伝えたと云われ、二唐の作品の出来は群を抜いています。 そして終戦後再び作刀許可が下りると、五代目の国俊は無鑑査刀匠となり現代刀の名工としての誉れも高く世に知られています。 さて、本作ですが元先あまり差が付かず、全体的に身幅広め重厚めのガッチリした体配、腰ゾリ付いて地金は良く詰んだ板目に地沸付き、刃紋は匂いがちな小互ノ目丁子が足長く入って、所によって焼頭に沸えがついて、切先は乱れて入り小丸に浅く返っています。 茎には講和記念（昭和27年サンフランシスコ平和条約発効）と刻印がありますが、その姿に平和の中にも”武”を忘れてはならないと、覇気みなぎる作品に感じられます。 義信刀匠の作風は直刃が多いのですが、今作は記念刀として作刀されているだけあって入念作です。 栗原昭秀の弟子として、無鑑査刀匠、国俊の父としてその技量をいかんなく発揮しています。 拵えは、縁頭目貫鍔まで真鍮の時代物、鞘は金茶色の梨地塗、鯉口金具に、栗型金具、鐺には鍬形の幕末金具全て鉄地としています。 外装だけでもかなりのこだわって作られており、愛刀だったのでしょう。 武道的に見ますと、まさに戦う日本刀。軍刀仕込みのタフな体配、良く刃肉ついて鎬高く、もし出征するならこうゆう刀を帯刀したいですね。 竹に藁を巻いた試斬や竹藪での試斬稽古にも対応できます。 道場刀としても良いと思います。 ※鞘が派手すぎる方は替え鞘2万円で作成致します。 その他、柄巻き金具の入れ替え等、ご相談ください。
NihontoWatchOffered by Token Hasegawa
As written by the shop
Shinshinto · Shinano · around 1864-1865
1 piece on the market now
Shinshinto · Musashi
14 pieces on the market now
The Kiyomaro school gathered in the workshops of Yotsuya in Edo around the middle of the nineteenth century, its founder Yamaura Kiyomaro (清麿) born in Bunka 10 (1813) at Akaiwa village in the Komoro district of Shinano, the second son of the country gentry-warrior Yamaura Nobukaze. He learned forging first under the Ueda-domain smith Kawamura Toshitaka, signing his early blades Masayuki, went up to Edo in Tenpo 6 (1835) under the patronage of the military scholar Kubota Kiyone, and in the autumn of Koka 3 (1846) settled at Iga-cho in Yotsuya and changed his signature to Kiyomaro; he died by his own hand at forty-two in Kaei 7 (1854). Around him moved his elder brother Yamaura Masao (真雄/正雄), who took the same instruction from Toshitaka and walked the same course from choji into Soshu-den, and the pupils who entered the Yotsuya forge in its final years: Kurihara Nobuhide (信秀), a mirror-maker from Sanjo in Echigo whom the published sources place nearest the master's hand; Saito Kiyondo (清人) of Dewa, who afterward settled his teacher's sword debts and carried the manner into early Meiji; and the wider circle of associates and patrons through which the line passed. The shared vocabulary of the school is a powerful Soshu-revival manner. Over an itame that flows and stands a little, well packed and at times opening into mokume and o-itame, the smiths lay thick ji-nie with frequent chikei, the steel clear and without utsuri, for this is a late hand reaching back five centuries to Sagami rather than a Bizen revival. The temper is an o-midare or gunome-midare mixed with ko-notare, the ashi and yo entering, the nie thick and gathering coarse in clusters of ara-nie, with long kinsuji and streaming sunagashi running through nearly every blade; the boshi answers in a midare-komi turning pointed with hakikake. A Bizen-leaning side survives from the early years in the residual choji that shades into the mature work. Within this common ground the hands diverge. Kiyomaro's is read as the overwhelming one, his Soshu-den reaching the upper transmission with the Shizu vein as his forte of fortes, the NBTHK calling his work 「覇気に満ちている」, filled with commanding spirit.
Masao's grounded forging is candidly weighed against his brother's, the texts noting that his chikei, sunagashi, and kinsuji run fewer and the quality does not reach Kiyomaro's level. Nobuhide is named the closest approach to the master and is alone in the school for his carving, a mirror-maker's hand that set kurikara, dragons, and bonji into blades the others left plain. Kiyondo holds the round-headed gunome-midare at full strength and adds a manner of his own, a bright suguha aligned with the Yamato tradition that Kiyomaro never worked. To kantei the school, read first the imposing shape particular to the Yamaura line: a wide body with little taper, the sori toward the point, a chu-kissaki extended or run to an o-kissaki whose fukura is allowed to wither for a sharp impression, often a shobu-zukuri or kanmuri-otoshi wakizashi. Read then the nie, thick in ji and ha, the chikei and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi that mark the force of the steel rather than any borrowed pattern. Carving narrows the field to Nobuhide; a Yamato suguha narrows it to Kiyondo. Kiyomaro stands at the head of the line, ranked by the published sources as high as Kotetsu and named without question the leading master among the shinshinto, the smith called the Yotsuya Masamune (四谷正宗). His extant work is scarce and closely held, passing through documented hands such as the Iwasaki family and the Seikado Bunko, and reaches the market only from time to time and at the very top of it. The pupils and the elder brother offer the more attainable face of the circle, signed and dated blades that come to a collector with patience; a signed example of any of these hands is a document of the moment when Soshu was reborn in Edo. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kiyomaro清麿 | 1839-1854 | 73 |
| Nobuhide信秀 | 1857-1867 | 34 |
| Kiyondo清人 | 1848-1868 | 10 |
| Masao真雄 | 1844-1866 | 7 |
| Masanao正直 | 1865-1868 | 3 |
Shōwa to the present: destruction and revival
The twentieth century nearly killed the craft twice: wartime distortion, then the occupation ban. The NBTHK’s founding in 1948 and licensed forging from 1953 rebuilt the sword as an art, crowned by Living National Treasures and the mukansa rank.