This is a masterpiece wakizashi by Sekisyu Naotsuna, a master craftsman of the Masamune school during the Nanbokucho period. It features a gorgeous midare hamon with abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, and a clear jiba. The blade is a naginata-naoshi with a well-forged itamehada and mokume, showcasing the distinctive characteristics of the Soshu-den tradition.
NihontoWatchsuriage-mumei · Masamune · Nanbokucho · nagasa 47.9cm · sori 0.8cm
Sekishu Naotsuna (Iwami), Soshu-den · Iwami · around 1334-1338
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 14%
3 pieces on the market now
Naotsuna worked in Iwami, the western province the swordbooks call Sekishu, during the Nanbokucho period, signing his blades with the residence Sekishu-ju or Sekishu Dewa-ju. The old tradition counts him among the Masamune-jittetsu, the ten noted disciples of Sagami Masamune, and the published sources have transmitted that account from the Edo period onward. They do not accept it on its face. Of the first generation they write that he 'is counted among the so-called Masamune Jittetsu, yet seen in terms of chronology a direct connection seems somewhat forced, and the question must await further careful study'[[c:1]], for no extant work bears a date earlier than the Eiwa era. What can be fixed is the manner: this is the Soshu tradition carried west to Iwami, and the published sources read its current as running together with Shizu and Samonji[[c:2]].
His hand is read from workmanship rather than from signature, because signed Naotsuna are scarce. The published record notes plainly that 'signed works by Naotsuna are comparatively few'[[c:3]], and most of what survives is o-suriage and mumei, so the few signed tachi carry a weight beyond their number. The tell the judges name is a temper of squared-off, lined-up gunome, the angular teeth running in step with one another, mixed with small gunome, small notare and pointed togariba. Over a well-nie'd midare he lays vigorous sunagashi and frequent kinsuji, with ashi and yo entering often. The published commentary draws the whole picture together on one shortened blade: the jigane of flowing itame with ji-nie and chikei, worked with 'a distinctive linked gunome and togariba, with sunagashi and kinsuji, is the characteristic point of interest of Sekishu Naotsuna'[[c:4]]. That sentence is the heart of his kantei.
The jigane is the constant beneath the temper. It is an itame that flows and stands, mixed with mokume, the hada open rather than packed, with ji-nie adhering and chikei entering well, and a steel tone that runs darkish, at times with a slight whitish cast. Over that jigane the activity belongs wholly to Soshu: nie gathers thickly, yubashiri and tobiyaki drift into the upper half, and on some blades a nijuba-like line doubles the habuchi while the nioiguchi tends to sink. The boshi answers the midare below, running in irregular and swept with hakikake, pointed on one face and small-round on the other, often closing in a yakizume-like sweep. Most of the katana carry a bo-hi cut through both sides, now and then with a soe-hi beside it.
The record divides cleanly into two registers of the one hand. The first is the small body of signed tachi, several of them judged the work of the first generation and prized for being signed at all. The keystone is the Tokubetsu Juyo tachi inscribed Naotsuna in two large characters, which the published sources call 'appraised as the work of the first generation and, being signed, exceedingly valuable', and whose notare-based temper with pointed elements they liken to Shizu and Samonji. The second register, far the larger, is the o-suriage mumei katana attributed to Sekishu Naotsuna from the workmanship alone. A second Tokubetsu Juyo, a shortened katana bearing a long gaku-mei, shows the angular gunome lined up across the blade with that characteristic Soshu activity. Across these the signatures themselves differ from blade to blade, which is one reason the swordbooks have never fixed which pieces are first generation and which second, placing the generations variously at Kenmu, Eiwa and Oei.
Within the Soshu tradition his work is set beside Shizu Kaneuji and Samonji, the published sources holding that his temper 'shares an underlying current with Shizu and Samonji of the Soshu-den'[[c:5]]. What separates him is not borrowed but his own: the lined-up angular gunome and the abundant sunagashi and kinsuji over a dark, flowing itame are the features by which an unsigned blade is judged his, where a Sagami Soshu hand would show a more refined jigane and a Bizen smith a bright packed ji with utsuri. He stands as the figure who took the Soshu manner out to Iwami and gave it a recognizable provincial accent, the linked gunome his signature where the cut signature is missing.
For the collector he is a smith met almost entirely through attribution. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through two pieces at the Tokubetsu Juyo rank, some sixty-nine at the Juyo, and three prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin recording signed tachi and a tanto, several from named houses. His blades are held in institutions and long-standing collections grounded in their own provenance, among them the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Tokyo Fuji Museum, with documented owners reaching back to the Tokugawa and Uesugi families, the Takatsukasa house, Ikeda Toshitaka and Tachibana Tadazane. Most designated blades, in private hands as in public, are held rather than traded, and a signed Naotsuna is rarer still than the count of designations suggests, since so little of his work is signed. An o-suriage mumei katana carrying his linked gunome comes to a private collector from time to time and with patience; an ubu, signed tachi judged the first generation is among the scarcer things one could hope to encounter, and a quiet document of how the Soshu tradition travelled to the far west.
Where Naotsuna 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.
Soshu-den · Iwami
6 pieces on the market now
In Iwami Province, called Sekishū, a line of smiths signing Naotsuna (直綱) worked in the manner of the Soshu-den far from Sagami, carrying that tradition into the San'in region during the Nanbokuchō period. The setsumei record several smiths of this name, the older tradition books placing a first generation in the Kenmu era, a second in Eiwa, and a third in Ōei, though the NBTHK is careful to note that a strict separation of the generations still awaits further study. The first-generation Naotsuna, sometimes given the family name Ishikawa, is transmitted as a pupil of Sagami Masamune and counted among the so-called Masamune Juttetsu, the Ten Disciples; the appraisals repeatedly add that, considered chronologically, a direct connection to Masamune seems difficult, and that the correctness of the tradition must be left to future research. Signed work of the first generation is rare, and the tachi signed Iwami no Kuni Naotsuna is described as exceedingly valuable for that reason. The shared hand is built on a forging of itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand (hada-dachi) and often runs with nagare, thickly covered in ji-nie with chikei entering well; the steel reads dark, an iron-toned kanashoku with a blackish cast that the appraisals treat as a recognition point. Upon this ground the temper is a gunome-based midare, the gunome frequently angular and run together in linked sequences, mixed with ko-notare, ko-gunome, and pointed togariba. Ashi and yō enter densely, nie adheres thickly and at times coarsely, and kinsuji and sunagashi run prominently through the ha, often joined by yubashiri, tobiyaki, and intermittent muneyaki. The bōshi is typically midare-komi with vigorous hakikake, returning in ko-maru or yakizume. These traits the NBTHK reads as the influence of the Soshu-den made plain, sharing an underlying current with Shizu and Samonji; one fourth-session tachi draws the comparison directly.
A chōji-flavored, Bizen-leaning element is occasionally mixed into the gunome, and faint utsuri is noted on a single katana, but the nie-laden Soshu character governs. To recognize Naotsuna's hand is to read this combination together: dark standing itame, an angular gunome base, and abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, set in the wide mihaba and ō-kissaki of the Enbun and Jōji moment. The line extends through smiths the setsumei name in their own right. Sadatsuna, recorded as a son of the first-generation Naotsuna and likewise resident at Izuha (Deawa) in Iwami, works in a manner that closely resembles Naotsuna's, seen both in a gunome-based and a ko-notare-based style and marked in either case by well-applied nie and vigorous sunagashi; his signed tantō, including a six-character Sekishū Deawa Sadatsuna, anchor the attribution of his mumei pieces. Masatsuna, given as a son of Sekishū Naotsuna and active from Nanbokuchō into the Muromachi period, is met in a bold, open ō-itame of zanguri texture with standing grain. The Suesada lineage, begun by a son of Sadatsuna, carried the tradition further into the Muromachi period and produced an ōdachi exceeding five shaku, and the appraisals trace still later Nagahama followers such as Shōsue, Shōsada, Yōtei, and Rinshō. As kantei points the register fixes the dark kanashoku, the angular and locally linked gunome, the thick and sometimes uneven nie, and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi, with the su-ken and bonji carvings recorded on several blades. Across the surviving body of signed and mumei work, gathered in the Jūyō-Bijutsuhin registers and in references such as the Kokon Kaji Bikō, Naotsuna stands as the carrier of the Soshu manner into Iwami, a provincial reading of Masamune's tradition recognized by its own settled vocabulary. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Naotsuna直綱 | 1334-1338 | 74 |
| Sadatsuna貞綱 | 1352-1356 | 8 |
| Masatsuna正綱 | 1444-1449 | 1 |
| Naotsuna直綱 | 1469-1487 | 0 |
| Naoshige直重 | 1368-1375 | 1 |
Sōshū in the Nanbokuchō period
Kamakura fell in 1333, but the school’s greatest era followed: Sadamune working at his teacher’s standard, Hiromitsu and Akihiro spilling hitatsura over the whole blade, and the Sōshū manner spreading with the armies until it became, for a time, a national style.
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 siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
This is a masterpiece wakizashi by Sekisyu Naotsuna, a master craftsman of the Masamune school during the Nanbokucho period. It features a gorgeous midare hamon with abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, and a clear jiba. The blade is a naginata-naoshi with a well-forged itamehada and mokume, showcasing the distinctive characteristics of the Soshu-den tradition.
NihontoWatchsuriage-mumei · Masamune · Nanbokucho · nagasa 47.9cm · sori 0.8cm
Sekishu Naotsuna (Iwami), Soshu-den · Iwami · around 1334-1338
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 14%
3 pieces on the market now
Naotsuna worked in Iwami, the western province the swordbooks call Sekishu, during the Nanbokucho period, signing his blades with the residence Sekishu-ju or Sekishu Dewa-ju. The old tradition counts him among the Masamune-jittetsu, the ten noted disciples of Sagami Masamune, and the published sources have transmitted that account from the Edo period onward. They do not accept it on its face. Of the first generation they write that he 'is counted among the so-called Masamune Jittetsu, yet seen in terms of chronology a direct connection seems somewhat forced, and the question must await further careful study'[[c:1]], for no extant work bears a date earlier than the Eiwa era. What can be fixed is the manner: this is the Soshu tradition carried west to Iwami, and the published sources read its current as running together with Shizu and Samonji[[c:2]].
His hand is read from workmanship rather than from signature, because signed Naotsuna are scarce. The published record notes plainly that 'signed works by Naotsuna are comparatively few'[[c:3]], and most of what survives is o-suriage and mumei, so the few signed tachi carry a weight beyond their number. The tell the judges name is a temper of squared-off, lined-up gunome, the angular teeth running in step with one another, mixed with small gunome, small notare and pointed togariba. Over a well-nie'd midare he lays vigorous sunagashi and frequent kinsuji, with ashi and yo entering often. The published commentary draws the whole picture together on one shortened blade: the jigane of flowing itame with ji-nie and chikei, worked with 'a distinctive linked gunome and togariba, with sunagashi and kinsuji, is the characteristic point of interest of Sekishu Naotsuna'[[c:4]]. That sentence is the heart of his kantei.
The jigane is the constant beneath the temper. It is an itame that flows and stands, mixed with mokume, the hada open rather than packed, with ji-nie adhering and chikei entering well, and a steel tone that runs darkish, at times with a slight whitish cast. Over that jigane the activity belongs wholly to Soshu: nie gathers thickly, yubashiri and tobiyaki drift into the upper half, and on some blades a nijuba-like line doubles the habuchi while the nioiguchi tends to sink. The boshi answers the midare below, running in irregular and swept with hakikake, pointed on one face and small-round on the other, often closing in a yakizume-like sweep. Most of the katana carry a bo-hi cut through both sides, now and then with a soe-hi beside it.
The record divides cleanly into two registers of the one hand. The first is the small body of signed tachi, several of them judged the work of the first generation and prized for being signed at all. The keystone is the Tokubetsu Juyo tachi inscribed Naotsuna in two large characters, which the published sources call 'appraised as the work of the first generation and, being signed, exceedingly valuable', and whose notare-based temper with pointed elements they liken to Shizu and Samonji. The second register, far the larger, is the o-suriage mumei katana attributed to Sekishu Naotsuna from the workmanship alone. A second Tokubetsu Juyo, a shortened katana bearing a long gaku-mei, shows the angular gunome lined up across the blade with that characteristic Soshu activity. Across these the signatures themselves differ from blade to blade, which is one reason the swordbooks have never fixed which pieces are first generation and which second, placing the generations variously at Kenmu, Eiwa and Oei.
Within the Soshu tradition his work is set beside Shizu Kaneuji and Samonji, the published sources holding that his temper 'shares an underlying current with Shizu and Samonji of the Soshu-den'[[c:5]]. What separates him is not borrowed but his own: the lined-up angular gunome and the abundant sunagashi and kinsuji over a dark, flowing itame are the features by which an unsigned blade is judged his, where a Sagami Soshu hand would show a more refined jigane and a Bizen smith a bright packed ji with utsuri. He stands as the figure who took the Soshu manner out to Iwami and gave it a recognizable provincial accent, the linked gunome his signature where the cut signature is missing.
For the collector he is a smith met almost entirely through attribution. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through two pieces at the Tokubetsu Juyo rank, some sixty-nine at the Juyo, and three prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin recording signed tachi and a tanto, several from named houses. His blades are held in institutions and long-standing collections grounded in their own provenance, among them the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Tokyo Fuji Museum, with documented owners reaching back to the Tokugawa and Uesugi families, the Takatsukasa house, Ikeda Toshitaka and Tachibana Tadazane. Most designated blades, in private hands as in public, are held rather than traded, and a signed Naotsuna is rarer still than the count of designations suggests, since so little of his work is signed. An o-suriage mumei katana carrying his linked gunome comes to a private collector from time to time and with patience; an ubu, signed tachi judged the first generation is among the scarcer things one could hope to encounter, and a quiet document of how the Soshu tradition travelled to the far west.
Where Naotsuna 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.
Soshu-den · Iwami
6 pieces on the market now
In Iwami Province, called Sekishū, a line of smiths signing Naotsuna (直綱) worked in the manner of the Soshu-den far from Sagami, carrying that tradition into the San'in region during the Nanbokuchō period. The setsumei record several smiths of this name, the older tradition books placing a first generation in the Kenmu era, a second in Eiwa, and a third in Ōei, though the NBTHK is careful to note that a strict separation of the generations still awaits further study. The first-generation Naotsuna, sometimes given the family name Ishikawa, is transmitted as a pupil of Sagami Masamune and counted among the so-called Masamune Juttetsu, the Ten Disciples; the appraisals repeatedly add that, considered chronologically, a direct connection to Masamune seems difficult, and that the correctness of the tradition must be left to future research. Signed work of the first generation is rare, and the tachi signed Iwami no Kuni Naotsuna is described as exceedingly valuable for that reason. The shared hand is built on a forging of itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand (hada-dachi) and often runs with nagare, thickly covered in ji-nie with chikei entering well; the steel reads dark, an iron-toned kanashoku with a blackish cast that the appraisals treat as a recognition point. Upon this ground the temper is a gunome-based midare, the gunome frequently angular and run together in linked sequences, mixed with ko-notare, ko-gunome, and pointed togariba. Ashi and yō enter densely, nie adheres thickly and at times coarsely, and kinsuji and sunagashi run prominently through the ha, often joined by yubashiri, tobiyaki, and intermittent muneyaki. The bōshi is typically midare-komi with vigorous hakikake, returning in ko-maru or yakizume. These traits the NBTHK reads as the influence of the Soshu-den made plain, sharing an underlying current with Shizu and Samonji; one fourth-session tachi draws the comparison directly.
A chōji-flavored, Bizen-leaning element is occasionally mixed into the gunome, and faint utsuri is noted on a single katana, but the nie-laden Soshu character governs. To recognize Naotsuna's hand is to read this combination together: dark standing itame, an angular gunome base, and abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, set in the wide mihaba and ō-kissaki of the Enbun and Jōji moment. The line extends through smiths the setsumei name in their own right. Sadatsuna, recorded as a son of the first-generation Naotsuna and likewise resident at Izuha (Deawa) in Iwami, works in a manner that closely resembles Naotsuna's, seen both in a gunome-based and a ko-notare-based style and marked in either case by well-applied nie and vigorous sunagashi; his signed tantō, including a six-character Sekishū Deawa Sadatsuna, anchor the attribution of his mumei pieces. Masatsuna, given as a son of Sekishū Naotsuna and active from Nanbokuchō into the Muromachi period, is met in a bold, open ō-itame of zanguri texture with standing grain. The Suesada lineage, begun by a son of Sadatsuna, carried the tradition further into the Muromachi period and produced an ōdachi exceeding five shaku, and the appraisals trace still later Nagahama followers such as Shōsue, Shōsada, Yōtei, and Rinshō. As kantei points the register fixes the dark kanashoku, the angular and locally linked gunome, the thick and sometimes uneven nie, and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi, with the su-ken and bonji carvings recorded on several blades. Across the surviving body of signed and mumei work, gathered in the Jūyō-Bijutsuhin registers and in references such as the Kokon Kaji Bikō, Naotsuna stands as the carrier of the Soshu manner into Iwami, a provincial reading of Masamune's tradition recognized by its own settled vocabulary. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Naotsuna直綱 | 1334-1338 | 74 |
| Sadatsuna貞綱 | 1352-1356 | 8 |
| Masatsuna正綱 | 1444-1449 | 1 |
| Naotsuna直綱 | 1469-1487 | 0 |
| Naoshige直重 | 1368-1375 | 1 |
Sōshū in the Nanbokuchō period
Kamakura fell in 1333, but the school’s greatest era followed: Sadamune working at his teacher’s standard, Hiromitsu and Akihiro spilling hitatsura over the whole blade, and the Sōshū manner spreading with the armies until it became, for a time, a national style.
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 siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
