After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.
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Wakimono · Etchu · around 1469-1487
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 49%
Kunitsugu of the Uda school in Etchu is fixed in time by a signed yari dated the twelfth month of Bunmei 17 (1485), designated Juyo Token at the fourteenth session together with a two-character signed katana; a second katana followed at the twenty-eighth session. The published sources introduce the school in the same words on both of the earlier papers: 「宇多派は文保の頃, 大和国宇多郡から移住し, 古入道国光を祖としたと伝え, 越中国宇多郡で栄えた一派である」 (the Uda school is said to have moved from Uda district in Yamato around the Bunpo era, to have taken Ko-Nyudo Kunimitsu as its founder, and to have flourished in Uda district of Etchu). The later paper adds that the school continued into the shinto era and that the Muromachi period, when many smiths appeared and left a large body of work, was its most prosperous time.
The yari is hira-sankaku-zukuri with a sanko-ken carved within a hitsu on the flat face. Its jigane is itame standing somewhat, with a blackish tone, and the temper is ko-notare mixed with gunome-midare, with clustered nie and frequent sunagashi; the boshi runs midare-komi and turns back with a pointed tendency. The tang is ubu, with the maker's signature on the omote and the date on the ura. The sources write that 「この派の槍は現存するものが少く, 姿も出来も優れ」 (few spears of this school survive, and this one excels in both form and workmanship), and value the Bunmei date both for the study of the Uda school and because signed spears from before the Muromachi period are not seen.
The two katana show the school's Muromachi uchigatana. The first, with an ubu tang and a large two-character signature straddling the single peg hole, has a shallow curvature and a chu-kissaki, itame with well-attached nie, and a large midare mixed with gunome and tobiyaki, ko-ashi and yo, frequent sunagashi and ko-nie, with muneyaki appearing often; the boshi runs midare-komi, turns back somewhat long and is swept with hakikake. Of it the sources say 「この国次は二字銘ながら室町時代のこの派の作として出来がよく, 同時代の打刀姿であり, 同派の特色が見られる」 (though signed with two characters, this Kunitsugu is a well-made Muromachi work of the school, in the uchigatana shape of its day, showing the features of the group). The second is wide, with a somewhat heavy kasane, a shallow curvature and an o-kissaki, carved with bo-hi on both sides. Its itame stands somewhat with a coarse, zanguri surface, ji-nie and a touch of jifu; the hamon is gunome with togariba and koshi-biraki gunome, ashi and yo, and uneven nie that gathers densely, while the boshi is slightly irregular with a ko-maru tip and kuichigai-ba on both faces. The sources single out its tang as well: 「茎尻が張るのも室町時代の宇多派の特色」 (the flaring tang tip is also a feature of the Muromachi Uda school).
Across the three works Kunitsugu appears as a late fifteenth-century Uda smith of standing itame and nie-laden gunome tempers with active sunagashi, signing in two characters on his katana and in full with the school name on his dated spear.
Where Kunitsugu stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Wakimono · Etchu
Phase: Uda宇多· 1390–1596
25 pieces on the market now
Where Ko-Uda closes with the Nanbokuchō generations, the chapter that follows opens in early Muromachi and runs to the end of the period. The setsumei draw the boundary plainly: works that descend no later than Nanbokuchō are called Ko-Uda, while everything thereafter is referred to simply as Uda. This later phase is the long Muromachi continuation in Etchū, where the Kuni-named line that began with Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu of Uda District in Yamato extends across successive generations sharing single names. Kunihisa, read by the meikan as son of Kunifusa and active from the Ōei era, runs through several generations down to the close of Muromachi; Kunimune carries from Nanbokuchō into Muromachi with dated pieces around Bunmei; and the later registers add Kuninaga, Kuniyoshi, Hirakuni, Sanekuni, Kunikiyo, Tomohisa, and Kunitsugu, names the sources place from Eikyō through Tenshō. Because individuals individuate little, a signed blade of this phase is appraised as the manner of its dated moment rather than the hand of one smith. The steel of the later phase keeps the school's northern foundation while standardizing its expression. The setsumei describe itame mixed with mokume, the grain overall standing (hada-dachi) and tending to flow (nagare), with ji-nie adhering and chikei entering; the jigane leans blackish, and a shirake-utsuri stands distinctly in the ji, sometimes with ji-madara mottling. Over this the temper most often opens as a suguha-based or chū-suguha line into which ko-gunome runs continuously from base to point, ashi and yō entering, ko-nie adhering along a bright nioiguchi, with sunagashi and occasional kinsuji.
A second, more agitated face mixes gunome, ko-notare and pointed togariba with thick nie, yubashiri and tobiyaki that on a Kuninaga wakizashi tend toward hitatsura. Against the earlier Ko-Uda this reads more regularized: where the early generations stayed close to their Yamato and Sōshū models with archaic ji-ha, the later hands settle into the elongated Ōei tantō form (broad for its width, with uchizori) and, in the katana, the wide sun-nobi sugata of advancing Muromachi. The Kunitsugu katana shows this drift toward coarseness directly, its itame standing and rough, the nie uneven and the temper darkening at the edge. To separate later Uda from Ko-Uda is to read the steel before the temper. The whitish, standing jigane with its blackish cast and shirake-utsuri returns a blade to this phase even when a nie-laden midare recalls Sōshū at first glance, and a tightly forged ko-itame may, as with the better Kunihisa pieces, approach Rai Kunimitsu or Rai Kunitsugu before the dark northern grain brings it home. Distinctive markers recur across the named smiths: the bōshi that becomes pointed and is tempered down with a long kaeri, the flaring (susodoshii) nakago-jiri, somewhat coarse rounded nie mixed within the ha, and the particular shaping of the character kuni in the signature. Dated and signed pieces anchor the chronology, from a Kunihisa tantō of Ōei 7 to a Kunimune wakizashi placed around Bunmei and Hirakuni and Sanekuni works set near Tenbun. Provenance for the phase tends toward settled holding, with examples recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection rather than circulating. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunihisa國久 | 1394-1428 | 10 |
| Kunimune國宗 | 1429-1479 | 5 |
| Kunifusa國房 | 1455-1457 | 3 |
| Tomotsugu友次 | 1381-1384 | 3 |
| Kunitsugu國次 | 1469-1487 | 3 |
The Muromachi period (1392 to 1573)
After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.