The Yamato schools grew up in the shadow of Nara’s great monasteries: Tegai took its name from a gate of Tōdaiji. Their austere masame and quiet suguha are a temple aesthetic, prized ever since for exactly that restraint.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch大和国手掻派は輾害とも書き、東大寺の西の正面である輾害門の外辺に一派が居住して鍛刀したためにこの名があるという。手掻派の祖は包永で、銘鑑では鎌倉時代後期の正応頃としているが、包永二代の子或は弟子と伝えている包清に嘉暦四年紀の短刀が違存していることや、包永の作域及び造込みなどの点からして、さらに時代の遡るものとも考えられる。大和物の中でも包永の在銘の太刀は比較的多く現存しており、それらは茎先に二字銘を遺す磨上の状態のものが殆どである。姿や地刃・帽子などは大和物一般の作風に共通するものであるが、此の工には他派よりも特に沸づくことがあり、つぶらで輝きのある美しい沸が見られ、地刃共によく冴えるのが見どころである。 大磨上無銘で包永と伝えている刀である。鎬が高く、板目に柾ごころの肌が交じり、直刃調にほつれ、喰違風の刃交じり湯走りかかり、沸が強く、帽子は掃かけ焼詰めごころとなり、大和物、特に包永の作風をよく表したもので包永の所伝は認められる。 本作は、承応頃（1652-1654）に小田原藩3代藩主の大久保加賀守忠朝より本阿弥家に来て十二枚の折紙が発行され、さらに天和元年には土佐藩の支藩である中村藩主の山内大膳亮豊明より来て代付けが増して二十枚の折紙が発行されている。大正元年（1912）には本阿弥琳雅が留帳の写しをとり、棟などにある幾つか切り込みなどを詳細に記している。 現状では2尺2寸7分（68.8cm）となり、折紙の長さの2尺3寸8分（72.1ｃｍ）と約3.5ｃｍの差異がみとめられ、付帯する研出鮫鞘肥後打刀拵が制作された大正頃にわずかに刃長を詰めたものと推察される。 折紙｢和州包永 正真長サ弐尺参寸八分余 磨上無銘也 代金子弐拾枚 天和元年酉 極月三日 本阿(花押)（光常）｣ 留帳写｢和州包永折紙留帳の写し(刀剣台帳の書き写し) 山内大膳(山内大膳（亮）豊明、土佐藩の支藩の中村藩主)より来る 一 金弐拾枚 スリ上包永 弐尺三寸八分半表中程 平凌（しのぎ）ニ懸り 小さき切り込 あり裏横手下刃少し細し 中程より五寸計（ばか）り下凌に疵あり 夫（それ）より壱寸計り下刃の上ニ疵あり先 より三寸余り下棟に切込あり区より 二寸五分程上凌角夫より少し下棟元 之通り小さき切込あり 右大久保加賀守(大久保加賀守忠朝、小田原３代藩主)より来り 承応（1652-1654）之拾二枚折紙あり右天和元年（1681）之留帳に記載有之候付証明致し候也 大正元年(1912)十月十一日 本阿弥琳雅（花押）｣ 古刀 上々作 大業物 田野辺探山先生鞘書 ｢第二十三回重要刀剣 和州手掻包永 大磨上無銘而天和元年本阿弥光常代金子弐拾枚折紙が添えらる折紙の刃長は本作より壱寸壱分半程（約3.5ｃｍ）長きと雖も大正元年本阿弥琳雅の留帳写にある切込の記載や本作の茎の上部の錆色が浅く大正頃の製作と推定される拵が附帯したりて此時期に茎を詰めた可能性が高く更に上身が紛れも無く同工の特色を備うる㕜から本作と合致する者なるべし 刃長 弐尺二寸七分有之 歳乙巳卯月 探山識(花押) 腰反猶深目につき身幅尋常鎬筋高く中鋒の姿態を見せ地鉄は板目に流柾交じり地沸厚く温潤なりて刃文は直調浅く湾れ小互乃目を交へ喰違あり匂深で発色強き円らな沸が豊かで匂口明るく冴え小丸風に掃掛ける帽子に結ぶなど正に同工の有銘作と繋がる健体屈指の優品也留帳写に拠り正応年間・大久保忠明の需で光温が弐拾折紙を出し降りて山内豊明の需で附帯の折紙を出したるが知らる｣
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As written by the shop
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Tegai (Yamato) · Yamato · around 1288-1312
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 5%
1 piece on the market now
For Kanenaga (包永) of Yamato the published commentary of the NBTHK returns, blade after blade, to one standing judgment: his manner "is the strongest in nie among Yamato works, the nioiguchi bright, and the jigane notably clear"[[c:1]], and beside the nie, the figure: "many of his blades present a dignified figure of high bearing"[[c:2]]. He is the founder of the Tegai school, one of the five lineages of Yamato, which resided and forged outside the Tegaimon (転害門), the west main gate of Todai-ji, thought to have served the temple. The reference works place him around the Shoo era (1288 to 1293), but the published sources repeatedly argue he goes back further: a tanto dated Karyaku 4 (1329) survives by Kanekiyo of the second generation's circle, and his own workmanship points earlier, so his activity is read from the middle into the late Kamakura period. The name was then carried by successive generations into the Muromachi period.
The construction leads in his work. The shinogi stands high and the shinogi-ji is cut wide, and nearly everything surviving is a suriage tachi of standard width, keeping its koshizori and closing in a chu-kissaki. The hamon is a suguha-cho bent in shallow notare, ko-gunome mixing in, the nioi deep; along the habuchi the edge frays into hotsure, with uchinoke, kuichigai-ba and nijuba, yubashiri drifting into the ji, kinsuji and sunagashi running through the ha. What the sources single out within this activity is the nie itself, especially strong compared with the other schools: "beautiful nie that is rounded and lustrous"[[c:3]]. The boshi continues sugu, strongly swept with hakikake, ending yakizume or turning back small in ko-maru.
The jigane is itame, mixed with mokume in places, flowing along the ha and tending toward masame, with thick ji-nie, chikei entering frequently, and the steel bright and clear. Around the monouchi the yakihaba often widens and the nie abruptly strengthens. Some blades temper the omote and ura differently, the trait typified by the Meibutsu Konotegashiwa Kanenaga[[c:4]]. The record also documents a quieter class, blades in a quiet, low-tempered suguha styling[[c:5]], at times narrowing to hoso-suguha. One such katana, bearing the red-lacquer attribution of Honami Koson and transmitted at Nagono Shrine, is read as "a comparatively calm type among Kanenaga's works"[[c:6]]; even there the thick ji-nie, the chikei and the round, shining nie carry the attribution.
His work survives in two registers. Comparatively many signed tachi remain, the sources note, nearly all suriage with the two-character mei left at the tip of the nakago; the ubu pieces are counted at a mere two. The signature itself is a documented tell: the character Kane compressed vertically, the second vertical stroke of Naga drawn out extremely long. To the doubt sometimes raised over their near-uniform suriage state the NBTHK answers that shortening like tachi yields like nakago: it "does not warrant suspicion"[[c:7]]. The other register is the o-suriage mumei katana attributed to him, where kuichigai-ba appears far more often than on the signed blades and the judgment rides on the quality of the nie: of one such blade the published record writes that on close inspection it surpasses typical Tegai work, the nioi conspicuously deeper and the gleaming ha-nie thick[[c:8]]; of another, that its workmanship connects directly to his signed works. The blades gathered here are the founder's: the second generation, of the Nanbokucho period, is catalogued separately, and the later generations part company readily, their steel turning generally whitish[[c:9]] and the nioiguchi tightening toward ko-nie, against the founder's bright, heavy nie.
Within Yamato the name set beside his is Shikkake Norinaga, and the separation runs along Kanenaga's own line: he holds the suguha-cho through its shallow notare, his ko-gunome never stringing into connected rows, and he lets yubashiri, uchinoke and nijuba play above the habuchi with unusual freedom. The judgments reach beyond the province. Honma observed of the first generation's nie that "at times one sees brilliant, sparkling nie of the kind observed in Awataguchi Hisakuni"[[c:10]], and the eighth Tokubetsu Juyo session writes of one signed tachi that its beautifully shining nie rivals the upper Soshu masters (相州上工). Of a shogunal-gift tachi the record concludes simply that it is "outstanding among his works"[[c:11]].
Kanenaga is rated Jo-jo saku by Fujishiro, and sixty-six designated works stand on record, among them one National Treasure, five Important Cultural Properties, eight Juyo Bijutsuhin, eight Tokubetsu Juyo and forty-one Juyo. These upper tiers are patrimony, held in shrines, museums and long-private collections, never to trade. The National Treasure, a suriage tachi signed in two characters near the tip of the nakago, passed from Akaboshi Tetsuma to the Iwasaki family and the Seikado; its published description calls it an outstanding tachi on which the nie shines with particular strength[[c:12]]. Recorded holders also include the Tokyo National Museum, Himeji Jinja, Shijonawate Jinja, the Sano Art Museum and the Tokugawa Art Museum. The provenance is deep, twenty-four blades carrying a recorded history. One tachi went from the shogun Tokugawa Ieshige to Mizuno Izumi-no-kami Tadayuki and later to Inukai Bokudo; another from Tokugawa Ienari to Sakai Tadanori of Himeji. A signed tachi bears the gold-inlaid possessor mark of Honda Heihachiro Tadatame, that is Tadatoki, husband of Senhime; the folded-back-mei katana of the Ise Ishikawa family is transmitted as Horio Mosuke's; a den katana carries a gold-inlaid cutting test of Tenna 2 (1682), four bodies severed. The rolls extend to the Date and Hachisuka families and the Imperial Family. For a collector the realistic field is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, forty-nine blades in all. Signed pieces are unusually numerous for so early a smith, twenty-one of those forty-nine carrying his signature, yet a tachi with the two-character mei changes hands rarely; what the market more often shows is the o-suriage den attribution, judged, as the published sources always judge it, on the round and lustrous nie.
Where Kanenaga 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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Yamato-den · Yamato
Phase: Ko-Tegai古手掻· 1200–1394
22 pieces on the market now
Ko-Tegai (古手掻) is the founding and classical phase of the Tegai school, spanning the late Kamakura period through the Nanbokuchō era. 1288-1293). Kanenaga is reckoned among the foremost Yamato masters: his signed tachi are celebrated for combining the dignity of Kamakura form with the disciplined grain of the Yamato tradition, and several are designated at the highest levels. The mainline continued through a second-generation Kanenaga and the founder's sons and pupils — Kanetsugu (包次), Kanekiyo (包清), and the early Kanezane (包眞) — into the Nanbokuchō period. In workmanship Ko-Tegai is orthodox Yamato-den.
The jigane is itame with conspicuous masame, especially along the shinogi-ji, thick with ji-nie and threaded by chikei. The hamon is built on a narrow, nie-laden suguha, frequently broken by ko-midare and ko-gunome, with nijūba and hotsure along the habuchi and abundant kinsuji and sunagashi; the bōshi runs sugu to a ko-maru or hakikake finish, often continuing into muneyaki. Early works show a slender, deeply koshizori tachi-sugata with a small kissaki, broadening into the more powerful forms of the Nanbokuchō period. The school's masame-rich grain and quiet, nie-active suguha distinguish its blades from the choji-based exuberance of contemporaneous Bizen work and place Tegai squarely within the five Yamato schools. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanenaga包永 | 1288-1312 | 66 |
| Kanekiyo包清 | 1362-1370 | 8 |
| Kanetoshi包俊 | 1381-1384 | 4 |
| Kanetsugu包次 | 1317-1333 | 4 |
| Kanekiyo包清 | 1429-1441 | 3 |
Yamato in the Kamakura period
The Yamato schools grew up in the shadow of Nara’s great monasteries: Tegai took its name from a gate of Tōdaiji. Their austere masame and quiet suguha are a temple aesthetic, prized ever since for exactly that restraint.
A blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,348 (about 1 in 202) have ever attained Jūyō.
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 sitePlease exercise cooling-off within 8 days of the item's arrival. (1) We cannot accept items that have been altered or worked on in any way (e.g. test cutting, polishing or other work, display at viewing meetings, photography, taking oshigata rubbings, use for appreciation, copying of books). (2) Return shipping is at the customer's expense. (3) Costs other than the item price (bank transfer fees, cash-on-delivery fees, installment fees, etc.) cannot be refunded. (4) For cash-on-delivery and similar payments, the refund is made after the payment has reached us. (5) We cannot accept a return when a trade-in item is involved. (6) Items delivered overseas cannot be returned or refunded (because of the time involved and, for swords, the surrender of the registration certificate and other circumstances).
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