Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch出ました出ました最上大業物で有名な本初代国包も現存作が少ない為に長い年月をかけて探していた脇差ですがここについに出てくれました。有名でありながら在銘の初代仙台国包の作品を拝見することは殆ど無く、誠に幻の名脇差の出現です。初代山城大掾藤原国包は有名な戦国大名伊達藩62万石伊達政宗の命により京都の情勢や世の中の動きを知る為もあり京都の越中守正俊に師事、慶長19年（1614年）の大坂冬の陣や翌年の大坂夏の陣には伊達政宗の命により陣中に在る程信頼された刀匠です。江戸初期寛永3年（1626年）（399年前）に山城大掾を受領。本脇差の姿は元身幅広くやや鎬高く先身幅との差の有る反りの有る良い豪快な脇差姿を現し、地鉄は板目肌に鎬地に柾目肌を現し、地には地沸が絡み明るく力強い地金を現し、刃文は匂いの深い特別注文品の明るい互の目乱れ刃を焼き地には玉も焼いて見事です、帽子は大丸で焼き大胆で上手です。本脇差は少々区を送っていますが奥州の雄藩伊達政宗お抱え初代仙台国包の作品の殆どが大和保昌写の直刃ですが本脇差は特別注文品の互の目乱れ刃が資料的にも貴重で代表作です。この度古いお数寄者様から自分も年を取りましたので、幻の作品と言われる初代仙台国包の作品を大切に大切にしてきましたが後進の方にお安くお譲り下さいとの事で昭和26年の東京都の大名登録も貴重です、特別に格安にてご提供いたします。初代仙台国包の代表作の脇差を是非お楽しみくださいませ。
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Sendai Kunikane (Yamato Hosho-den revival, Mutsu) · Rikuzen · around 1624-1644
Tōken Taikan top 14%
1 piece on the market now
The shodai Kunikane was born Hongō Genzō in Bunroku 1 (1592) at Kokubun-Wakabayashi in Sendai, Mutsu, and entered the service of Date Masamune as a retained smith. By his lord's command he went up to Kyoto and studied under Etchū no Kami Masatoshi; in Kan'ei 3 (1626) he received the court title Yamashiro Daijō, and he styled himself a descendant of the later line of Yamato Hōshō Gorō. In the opening decades of the Shintō period, when the Sōshū manner in itame and mokume was the fashion of the day, Kunikane gave his working life to reviving the masame-forging, suguha-tempering Hōshō-den of old Yamato. The published sources record that 「作風は一貫して大和保昌伝に終始し」, his manner kept to the Yamato Hōshō tradition from first to last, and every blade of his on the designation record is signed in his own name.
His characteristic hand is constant. The forging is a tightly packed masame-hada, at times running into nagare, carrying fine ji-nie thickly applied and frequent chikei, the steel notably clear. A mizukage often rises from below the machi, and the published sources name it a personal habit of the smith, calling it on one wakizashi a feature that 「初代国包の手くせといえる」. Over that jigane he tempers a suguha or suguha-chō, frequently broad and shallow in notare, the nioiguchi deep and bright. The activity is the Yamato kind: general hotsure along the habuchi, kinsuji and sunagashi set freely into the line, kuichigai-ba, nijūba and uchi-noke mixed in, and ko-ashi entering.
Fine ji-nie and abundant chikei over a clear, well-packed masame recur on nearly every blade, the forging growing more refined as it tightens. The bōshi is the Yamato finish, running straight into a yakizume-like point with vigorous hakikake. On this point the published sources are unusually candid. Measured against the early Hōshō, they say his shortfall lies in 「物打上の変化に乏しいことと, 帽子が平凡な点にある」, a relative want of variation above the monouchi and a commonplace bōshi, while holding that the ji and hamon of his representative dated katana are nonetheless excellent.
One consistent hand divides into two registers by the shape it takes. The standard work is the shinogi-zukuri katana, ubu and long-signed, very often dated, with a high shinogi, shallow sori and an elongated chū-kissaki; his dated katana of Kan'ei 4 and Kan'ei 9 are the reference points for his work. Two prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin katana carry his go in the signature: one signed Yamashiro Daijō Fujiwara Yokei Kunikane and dated Keian 1 (1648), with a high koshi-zori, funbari, a slightly standing masame and a chū-suguha of ko-nie in a shallow notare with sunagashi, the other signed Yokei Kunikane saku over a clean masame. The rarer register is the hira-zukuri wakizashi, of which the published sources note that very few survive. On these the temper opens out: the upper half takes a broader yakiba, the nie thickens and coarsens in places, tobiyaki resembling yubashiri appear and the nioiguchi tends toward shizumi, while the carvings, a suken and a katana-hi with soe-hi, are cut deep in the manner of old Yamato work. Of the Onikiri wakizashi the published sources say that in it 「初代国包の本領が遺憾なく発揮された」, his true strengths brought out without reserve.
His bright masame and Yamato bōshi set him apart from the Sōshū-fashion smiths of his day, and his disciplined suguha over a clear jigane separates him equally from the kotō Hōshō he revered, whose monouchi and bōshi the texts say he did not quite equal. He retired in Shōhō 2 (1645) and handed the headship to his eldest son Kichiemon, the second-generation Yamashiro no Kami Kunikane, founding a Sendai Kunikane line that carried the masame Hōshō-den to the end of the Edo period; the shodai remains the standard against which the later generations are judged.
His designated record runs through one Important Cultural Property, four prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, one Tokubetsu Jūyō and twenty-eight Jūyō blades, with one sword recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, thirty-five designated works on record and every one signed. There are no National Treasures. His finest, an ubu, signed and dated katana preserved in its original form and held in the Uwajima Date family, the published sources call 「古保昌に優るとも劣らぬ作域」, equal to or surpassing the old Hōshō, and a masterpiece of imposing presence. Provenance runs through the houses he served and a few long-private hands: the Date and the Uwajima Date families above all, and named collectors such as Kimura Sadazō. A signed shodai Kunikane is not beyond a serious collector's reach in the way a great Kamakura master is, yet his blades are mostly held rather than traded, the hira-zukuri wakizashi rarest of all, and a dated example in good state comes to market only from time to time.
Where Kunikane 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
Yamato-den · Rikuzen
10 pieces on the market now
Below Sendai Castle, at Kokubu Wakabayashi in Miyagi District of Ōshū (later Rikuzen, present-day Sendai), the first Kunikane established a forge that served the Date house across the early shintō period. The setsumei record him as a member of the Hongō family, first called Genzō and later Yoshinosuke, born in Bunroku 1 (1592), who claimed descent from a later branch of Yamato Hōshō Gorō. As a retained smith (kakae-kaji) of Date Masamune he was sent by his lord's command to Kyoto in Keichō 19 (1614), where he studied under Etchū no Kami Masatoshi; he received the court title Yamashiro Daijō in Kan'ei 3 (1626), took the tonsure upon Masamune's death in Kan'ei 13 (1636) under such Buddhist names as Ninzawa Yōe and Yōkei, retired in Shōhō 2 (1645) at fifty-four, and died in Kanbun 4 (1664) at seventy-three. The house continued through his legitimate son, the second-generation Kunikane (Hongō Kichiemon), born Keichō 17 (1612), who succeeded to the headship in 1645 and received the title Yamashiro no Kami in Kanbun 7 (1667). Other Sendai hands appear in the register as well: a Rinsuke (倫助) of the same lineage as Anrin signing "Ōshū Kokubu Sendai-jū," and later signatures reading Yōe Kunikane and the Shōwa-era Yōke Kunitsutsumi, carrying the line forward. What binds these blades into one hand is the deliberate transplant of the Yamato-den Hōshō manner onto Sendai steel. The setsumei describe the first generation as turning, in an age when the Sōshū tradition was widely practiced, toward the working range of the Yamato Hōshō line: a high shinogi, a forged masame-hada, and a suguha-based temper.
Recognition begins in the kitae, a masame-hada running well throughout, often tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine chikei entering and ji-nie adhering thickly over clear steel; a mizukage frequently rises from below the machi, called a habitual trait of both first and second generations. The temper is a chū- or hiro-suguha carrying a shallow notare, into which uchi-noke, hotsure, kuichigai-ba, and a nijūba-like effect mingle along the habuchi, with deep nioi, well-adhering nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi running through; the bōshi runs straight and tends toward yakizume with vigorous hakikake. Generations divide on detail rather than idiom: the first generation's strongest pieces show the masame at its most ordered with a bright nioiguchi, while the second generation, equally schooled in the family specialty, sometimes works toward gunome-midare and finishes with a quiet warmth; certain late first-generation works, such as the dated Kan'ei 19 katana, depart unusually into a primarily itame ground with whitish utsuri. For kantei the register fixes the points plainly: ordered masame with ji-nie and chikei, the suguha-and-hotsure edge with masame carried into a yakizume boshi, and the rising mizukage habit. The signature itself is a marker, the setsumei noting that from Kan'ei 9 (1632) the grass-radical of the character 藤 begins to be chiseled as separated strokes resembling a "#," and that the rarer "Yōe" form and examples bearing Kunitsugu's kaō carry documentary weight. Named works anchor the line: a Tokubetsu-Jūyō katana signed Yamashiro Daijō Fujiwara Kunikane transmitted in the Uwajima Date family, with an iron tsuba signed Myōchin Sōhei; first- and second-generation katana recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection; a Jūyō wakizashi bearing the kuyō crest of the Date house said to have been bestowed by Masamune; and a katana carrying a Yamano Ka'emon cutting-test inscription dated Kanbun 4. The setsumei place the first generation's best blades at a level close to, and at points surpassing, the old Hōshō master, and present the Sendai Kunikane house as the enduring carrier of the Yamato Hōshō manner under Date patronage through the Edo period. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunikane國包 | 1624-1644 | 35 |
| Kunikane國包 | 1644-1670 | 10 |
| Kaneshige包重 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
| Tomosuke倫助 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
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.
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