War at home and trade abroad made Muromachi Bizen the busiest forge region in Japan: a century of Sengoku demand after the Ōnin War, and export missions to Ming China carrying blades by the tens of thousands.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis is a wakizashi signed by Bishu Osafune Katsumitsu, dated Meio 10 (1501 AD) when the smith was 67 years old. It features a thick kasane and well-balanced form, with a beautiful jitetsu of ko-itame and ko-mokume. The hamon is a tightly-grained suguha with subtle ko-ashi, presenting a pure white interior. It comes with a gold-foiled double habaki and shirasaya, and is accompanied by an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon certificate.
NihontoWatchOffered by Choshuya
Osafune (Sue-Bizen), Bizen · Bizen · around 1469-1487
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 14%
3 pieces on the market now
A katana dated the second month of Bunmei 16 (1484), signed in a large long mei Bizen no kuni ju Osafune Ukyo-no-suke Katsumitsu and incised below its bo-hi with the prayer-texts Tenka-taihei kokudo-an'on and Fuki-manpuku kai-ryo-mansoku, is the one work of this smith raised to Tokubetsu Juyo. Katsumitsu is one of the representative names of the mid- and late-Muromachi Osafune smiths called Sue-Bizen, and the published sources record more than ten smiths signing it from the middle of the Muromachi period onward. The signature compendia single out those who added a common name to the mei, above all Ukyo-no-suke Katsumitsu and his son Jirozaemon-no-jo. Ukyo-no-suke, the maker of this record, is placed ahead of his son in seniority and named the elder brother of Sakyo-no-shin Munemitsu (右京亮と銘するものは次郎左衛門尉よりは先輩であり). The same entry counts his technique among the best of Sue-Bizen[[c:1]].
His characteristic hand is the compound gunome of Sue-Bizen, carried higher and brighter with chōji. The published sources say that while his work often shows that gunome, he is especially adept, compared with the other Sue-Bizen smiths, at a more flamboyant effect with abundant chōji mixed into the midare[[c:2]]. On the Tokubetsu Juyo katana the temper mixes open-waisted gunome, chōji, ko-gunome and ko-chōji, with ashi and yō entering well, nioi prevailing with ko-nie, and yubashiri and a bright nioiguchi. The NBTHK reads it as showing the typical manner of Katsumitsu within Sue-Bizen work[[c:3]]. A solo katana of Bunmei 10 tempers chōji, ko-chōji and togariba in a high yakiba, with kinsuji, sunagashi and small tobiyaki in the lower half.
The jigane is a ko-itame or an itame mixed with mokume, well packed and flowing in places, with ji-nie that on the Bunmei 10 katana is fine as dust and with fine chikei. A midare-utsuri rises over it on most of his blades. Of a Bunmei 18 wakizashi made with Munemitsu, the published sources write that its midare-utsuri is clearer than on Bizen work of the same period and its temper rich in variation with conspicuous chōji[[c:4]]. The bōshi enters in midare and turns back in a ko-maru or with a pointed tendency. Both faces carry the devotional carving of the school: bō-hi in maru-dome with bonji below, kurikara, a sankō-tsuki-ken and the shrine name Hachiman Daibosatsu. The published sources take these to be the work of the school's specialist carvers. The shape is the late-Muromachi katate-uchi uchigatana, broad and thick with sakizori and a short tang with a flared end.
Most of his record is joint work. Eight of his ten NBTHK-designated blades are collaborations, seven of them with his younger brother Sakyo-no-shin Munemitsu, the two names cut in two lines, most over dates of the Bunmei era. Several were forged away from Osafune, at Kusakabe in Bitchu and at Kojima in Bizen. Two more Kusakabe pieces stand outside that record. A katana of Bunmei 18 (1486), tempered in a gunome of ko-nie mixed with chōji, was certified Juyo Bijutsuhin; the published sources name the pair as sons of Rokurozaemon Sukemitsu whose joint works are met comparatively often, and call this blade their representative work[[c:5]]. A wakizashi dated Bunmei 19 (1487), tempered in gunome mixed with chōji over an itame jigane, is designated an Important Cultural Property. The published sources call the Kojima wakizashi valuable material for tracing the brothers' movements[[c:6]]. They add that joint works of the two are by no means rare, yet because both smiths were highly skilled they are what sword lovers prize most[[c:7]]. A katana of Bunmei 16 adds Hikobei Tadamitsu as a third hand. Of it the NBTHK writes that it has scarcely seen another joint sword including Tadamitsu[[c:8]].
Beside the chōji-rich gunome he also tempers a calm suguha-based line, and the published sources compare it with the work of Tadamitsu. The three-way katana tempers a suguha-chō with ko-gunome, ashi and yō, sunagashi and kinsuji. The Kojima wakizashi of Bunmei 16 has a suguha base with shallow notare, hotsure and fine sunagashi, and the commentary calls it work especially often seen on Tadamitsu[[c:9]]. A katana forged with Munemitsu at Kojima in the same year tempers a suguha with a little gunome in ko-nie, the bōshi straight with a round turnback, and is valued for its inscription as much as its workmanship[[c:10]]. Another joint katana with Munemitsu tempers a chū-suguha with small ashi and a tight nioiguchi over a clean, well-packed ko-itame, carved with a suken and bonji at the waist. The NBTHK calls it typical and representative of the uchigatana of its day[[c:11]]. A tantō of Bunmei 11, made with Gorozaemon-no-jo Norimitsu when the elder smith was seventy-four, is broad, extended and very thick, with strong uchizori. It tempers a chū-suguha with a ko-gunome feeling in bright, clear ko-nie, and the NBTHK finds in it a vein of workmanship akin to Tadamitsu of the same school.
He has no National Treasures; his one Important Cultural Property is that Kusakabe wakizashi, held at the Tōshōgū in Tochigi. His NBTHK record is one Tokubetsu Juyo and nine Juyo blades, all signed and dated, most of them in the Bunmei era, and Fujishiro ranks him Sai-jo saku. The Tokubetsu Juyo katana, first designated Juyo in the seventh session, is called a rare work robust in build for its time and an excellent blade showing Katsumitsu at his best[[c:12]]. Its prayer-text inscriptions have no parallel elsewhere and were presumably made to a special order, though later smiths imitated them[[c:13]]. The Bunmei 11 tantō is accompanied by a mounting by Ishiguro Masami bearing the crests of the Okubo family, from whom it descends. Outside these, the Juyo blades are the works a collector may realistically meet, and a signed and dated Katsumitsu reaches the market only from time to time.
Where Katsumitsu 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Sue-Bizen末備前· 1441–1596
10 pieces on the market now
The last great chapter of Osafune unfolds in the Eisho and Tenbun years of the late Muromachi, when the riverside workshop turned its accumulated craft toward an age of constant war. Where Oei-Bizen had looked backward, reviving the tachi shape and the choji temper of the Kamakura masters under Yasumitsu and Morimitsu, Sue-Bizen faces forward into Sengoku demand. The leading hands carry the same family characters one generation further: the Sukesada group, headed by Yosazaemon-no-jo Sukesada and the Hikobee-jo Sukesada said to be his father, alongside Katsumitsu (often Jirozaemon-no-jo), Munemitsu, Tadamitsu of the Heiroemon-jo line, and the Kiyomitsu smiths Magoemon-no-jo and Gorozaemon-no-jo. The setsumei draw a sharp line through their output. Commissioned blades, chumon-uchi, were signed with full zokumyo, dated, and frequently inscribed with the name of the ordering party, as on the Katsumitsu and Sadamitsu naginata of Meio 8 made for the Miyake of Kojima, a house that fed into the Ukita. Below them ran the bulk trade of kazu-uchimono, the arms that supplied the warring provinces, and it is the chumon-uchi masters that the designations preserve. What the steel does in this window is distinct from every earlier Osafune register. The shape is the uchigatana: wide mihaba with thick kasane, pronounced sakizori, an extended chu-kissaki or o-kissaki, and a short nakago suited to the katate-uchi one-handed draw, a body unlike the koshizori tachi of Ko-Osafune or the broad Nanbokucho profile of Soden-Bizen. The forging tightens into ko-itame over which a midare-utsuri stands faintly rather than vividly, weaker than the bright reflection of the founding generation.
The signature temper is the open-waisted koshi-no-hiraita gunome, splitting at the heads into fukushiki compound midare and mixed with togariba and choji; it is nioi-based with ko-nie and a bright nioiguchi, with ashi, yo, kinsuji and small tobiyaki worked through. Against this, Soden-Bizen had pushed Soshu nie and notare, while the founders had tempered flamboyant choji over a vivid utsuri. Two specialties branch off the gunome base: the Kiyomitsu and Tadamitsu suguha, calm and tightly forged, and the hitatsura of high-tempered pieces with long muneyaki and yubashiri, seen in the warlord-smiths Akamatsu Masanori and Ishikawa Yukihisa. To kantei a Sue-Bizen blade is to read the body first and the temper second. The compact uchigatana sugata with thick kasane and a short tang fixes the late-Muromachi date; the faint utsuri over dense ko-itame keeps it in Bizen; the open-waisted compound gunome names the group. The masters then separate by hand: Katsumitsu is set apart by the abundant choji he folds into the gunome, yielding a more florid, brilliant dekiguchi than his peers; Tadamitsu and the Kiyomitsu smiths are read out by their suguha, with Magoemon-no-jo's itame standing in mokume to distinguish his ground. The cutting reputation is documented directly, as on the Hikobee-jo Sukesada katana of Keicho 5 carrying a tameshi inscription naming the tester Ichihara Hachibee. Provenance threads through the supplementary signatures: Masanori's reward blades cut for his retainers, the Miyake names tying the workshop to the Ukita, and the Shinjuro Sukesada whose few large works may have ended in the Tensho flood. The horimono carried from the mainline, bonji with rendai, Fudo Myoo, and shrine dedications, persist on these blades as a final mark of the line. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Katsumitsu勝光 | 1490-1529 | 29 |
| Katsumitsu勝光 | 1469-1487 | 12 |
| Katsumitsu勝光 | 1528-1532 | 0 |
| Katsumitsu勝光 | 1492-1501 | 2 |
Bizen in the Muromachi period
War at home and trade abroad made Muromachi Bizen the busiest forge region in Japan: a century of Sengoku demand after the Ōnin War, and export missions to Ming China carrying blades by the tens of thousands.
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 siteIf, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.
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