The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchIt has appeared, it has appeared, a phantom masterpiece has appeared. Even at the Kyoto Sword Exhibition held at the Kyoto National Museum a few years ago, which was a great success with over 400,000 visitors, only a single sword could be exhibited; we heard stories in our youth but were never able to see an actual specimen; it is the miraculous appearance of a precious work by the swordsmith Higashiyama Ju Yoshihira, the nephew of Umetada Myoju, who is praised as the founder of Shinto. Higashiyama Ju Yoshihira is said to be an outstanding swordsmith within the Umetada school and resided in Higashiyama, Kyo, but because the Umetada family had much political work for the Imperial Family and the Court, extant works by him, along with those of Umetada Myoju, are extremely few, making this wakizashi wonderfully precious. Yoshihira's real name was Umetada Denzaburo. He was the third son of Umetada Shigeyoshi (Myoshin), the younger brother of Umetada Myoju who succeeded the Umetada family, and it is told that he learned sword forging from his second older brother, Yoshinobu. This wakizashi is a special order piece, displaying a grand wakizashi sugata with a wide motohaba, a difference with the sakihaba, a deep sori, and an extended kissaki; the jigane is a well-tightened mokume hada with abundant jinie, forged into a bright and magnificent jigane; the hamon is a deep nioi-guchi o-gunome midare-ba with variations like fallen light snow, grandly manifesting nie-sunagashi within the ha, and on the omote, many tama are tempered in the ji, creating a unique and spirited midare-ba that is magnificent. While the sword making of Higashiyama Yoshihira is famous, works are very few, and for the sword world, this is a phantom, precious wakizashi work. Having received this wakizashi from an old connoisseur who has cherished it, with the request to pass it on cheaply to someone who will treasure it, this price is a bargain even for a wakizashi by the phantom Higashiyama Ju Yoshihira that one cannot see; we offer it at a special, ultra-low price, so please enjoy it.
Offered by Nipponto
3 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Shinto · Yamashiro · around 1681-1684
Tōken Taikan top 21%
3 pieces on the market now
Where Yoshihira 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Shinto · Kyoto
44 pieces on the market now
The Umetada school is one of the most distinguished metalworking lineages of the Momoyama period, rooted in Nishijin, Kyoto, and claiming descent from the legendary Sanjo Munechika. The house served the Ashikaga shogunal family over successive generations, establishing deep foundations in the full range of sword-related arts -- swordmaking, blade carving (toshin-bori), the production of steel and fittings, the shortening of blades, the insertion of inlaid signature attributions (zogan-mei), and the making of mountings. " Myoju taught both Hizen Tadayoshi and Higo no Kami Teruhiro, and accepted commissions from the Toyotomi and Tokugawa houses as well as many daimyo families. An earlier stratum of production, appraised as Ko-Umetada, dates from the close of the Muromachi period and demonstrates that the group's technical foundations were firmly established before Myoju's maturity. The near-contemporary Mitsutada, though absent from formal genealogies, is conjectured to have been of senior standing within the circle; his works, executed on brass with an archaic dekoboko-ji ground, display "an even more classically archaic elegance" than Myoju's. Shigeyoshi, active from the Kan'ei through Genroku eras, carried the tradition forward into the mid-Edo period. The Umetada school's collective technical identity divides into two principal modes: iron works and soft-metal (irogane) works. In the iron mode, Myoju expressed geometric patterns -- sayagata, raimon, kasumi-kaminari-mon, and rinzu-mon -- by means of gold nunome-zogan, complemented by celebrated openwork including wheel and double-tomoe sukashi tsuba.
The nejikaeshi-mimi (twisted turned-back rim) and gold rim inlay are techniques "at which he particularly excelled," while the iron itself is invariably "carefully selected" and displays excellent quality. In the irogane mode -- employing shakudo, suaka, brass, and other alloys as ground material -- the school developed a distinctive form of hira-zogan (flat inlay) that retains only slight relief, deploying colored metals in novel combinations. " Ground textures including hammered tsuchime-ji, polished migaki-ji, and file-finished surfaces are deployed with meticulous care to heighten the pictorial effect. Mitsutada's work on brass with its uneven, raised-and-recessed ground and enrichment through gold and silver nunome-zogan represents a more archaic variant of this aesthetic. Shigeyoshi synthesized the inherited hira-zogan tradition with textile-derived designs of linked shippo, karakusa arabesque, and sayagata patterns -- reflecting his Nishijin milieu, the heart of Kyoto's silk-weaving district -- while deploying suemon-zogan, sukidashi-bori, and kin-iroe across shakudo grounds in both polished and stone-textured finishes. The Umetada school's historical significance is singular: the pictorial manner of design, the hira-zogan technique, and the use of non-iron metals as the ground material "all find their earliest beginning with Myoju" -- he stands as the originator of an entire aesthetic vocabulary in kinko. The NBTHK consistently describes Myoju's work as possessing "the vitality that preserves the very momentum of brushwork," with a "strong connection with Hon'ami Koetsu and Tawaraya Sotatsu" that places him among the foremost artistic figures of the Momoyama age. " Solid-gold tsuba, frequently melted down during periods of upheaval, are recognized as extremely rare survivals of exceptional documentary and artistic value. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Myoju明寿 | 1590-1631 | 45 |
| Muneyoshi宗吉 | 1596-1615 | 4 |
| Naritsugu就次 | — | 0 |
| Umetada Mitsushige光重 | 1700-1750 | 0 |
| Kaji’emon加治右衛門 | — | 0 |
Kyōto: the revival workshop
The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
¥2,300,000
Certificate reading — 銘 東山住美平