Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
This is a Wakizashi by Awataguchi Hisakuni from the early Kamakura period, around the Joukyu era. It is accompanied by an Origami from Hon'ami Shinzen. The blade features an ultimate Nashijihada, a bright and clear Jiba, and an elegant masterpiece with a slightly narrow Mihaba and deep Sori.
NihontoWatchohsuriage · Awataguchi · Kamakura · nagasa 46.5cm · sori 1.3cm
Awataguchi (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1190-1199
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 1%
Awataguchi Hisakuni worked at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Yamashiro in the early Kamakura period, and he is the second of the six Awataguchi brothers, the smith who used the personal name Tojiro (藤次郎). The published record sets the family out plainly: the founder is given as Kunika, and his sons were the six brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo (国清), Arikuni (有国) and Kunitsuna (国綱). That a community of smiths already stood at Awataguchi is attested in the early-Kamakura tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari[[c:1]], so this is a forge with a documented place in the literature of its own century, not a later reconstruction.
Hisakuni's standing inside that famous house is the first thing to recognise. The 14th Tokubetsu-Juyo entry calls his manner the most refined and dignified within Awataguchi work[[c:2]], and the 42nd Juyo entry ranks him foremost of the lineage in both technique and refinement of spirit. He is repeatedly named among the bangaji whom the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (後鳥羽院) summoned to forge on rotation at the cloistered court, and one record goes further and transmits him as a teacher to the sovereign (帝王の師). The history is not decoration here. It is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does.
Recognise his hand by the pure Yamashiro register. Over a tightly packed ko-itame, finely worked and dense with ji-nie, he tempers a quiet suguha that leans into a shallow notare, with small gunome and a little ko-midare mixed in, ko-ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi tight and bright, and kinsuji and sunagashi running in the ha. The boshi is a calm ko-maru, and very often it sweeps with hakikake; one Tokubetsu-Juyo katana records it exactly as a straight tip that brushes into a yakizume-like finish[[c:3]], and the same swept tip recurs across his katana and his tanto. The forging itself draws a recurring word from the appraisers, the so-called tataki-tsume look of a thoroughly consolidated jigane, and the Awataguchi steel praised of old as blue in colour with a white edge[[c:4]].
Among the brothers the connoisseurs single him out for nie. The 24th Juyo entry calls him the smith whose ji and ha carry nie most strongly, sometimes with a slightly coarse nie mixed in, while the 22nd Juyo tachi names him outright the most skilful forger of the six[[c:5]], its tight ko-itame and deep, faintly urumi nioiguchi recalling his younger brother Kuniyasu. His tanto show the same clarity in miniature: the wide, slightly curved Juyo-Bijutsuhin tanto is flagged as an unusual shape for Awataguchi, and the Honma note attached to it draws the very line that separates this house from its successors, the occasional eccentric proportion among Awataguchi tanto being a point of distinction from the Rai school.
His place in the wider road of Yamashiro steel runs through that contrast with Rai. The refined nie-suguha he and his brothers fixed at Awataguchi is the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, and through them the eastern Soshu smiths after; one of the katana grouped with him even carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Rai Kunitsugu, a reminder of how closely the early Yamashiro and later Rai hands sit in the eye. Signed work survives in the smallest numbers, a few tachi and tanto, most of them the bold two-character mei cut now with a thick chisel and now with a finer one, with the rare long Tojiro Hisakuni signature confirmed against the old sword books Kotoku Toezu[[c:6]] and Kozan Oshigata (光山押形). The blades carry the names of the great houses: the Kishu Tokugawa[[c:7]] and the Date (伊達家), the Matsudaira of Saijo and the Akimoto, with one tanto authenticated by a Hon'ami Kotsune origami dated Enpo 9.
For the collector the arithmetic is severe. A National Treasure and a small group of Important Cultural Properties stand to his name, several of them held in institutions, the Tokyo National Museum and Nikko Toshogu and Itsukushima Jinja among the recorded holders, where they can never trade. Only a handful sit in the Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo tiers, and those are spoken for by old daimyo provenance. A Hisakuni in private hands is therefore among the rarest things a student of the early sword can hope to meet, and when one appears it is the quiet, dignified, nie-laden suguha of the imperial forge, not the spectacle of a later age, that the buyer is acquiring.
Where Hisakuni 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.
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
4 pieces on the market now
The steel is the first thing one learns to read in Awataguchi work: a ko-itame kneaded so tight that the surface takes on the pear-skin sheen the texts name nashiji-hada, the ji-nie dusted over it fine and even, slender chikei threading through, the whole carrying a moist luster (潤い) and a clarity that recurs in notice after notice. This is the steel of the early Yamashiro tradition at its summit. The forge stood at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Kyoto, on the highway running toward Omi, and a community of smiths already worked there by the early Kamakura period; the tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari attests their presence, so this is a house with a documented place in the literature of its own century. The school is conventionally founded on the six brothers, Kunitomo the eldest, then Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, sons of the founder Kunika (also given as Kuniie). Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu were summoned as goban-kaji to forge on rotation at the cloistered court of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and Hisakuni is even transmitted as a teacher to the sovereign; that imperial patronage is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. What binds the house across four generations is restraint married to refinement. Over the nashiji-hada the brothers set a calm suguha leaning into a shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji, the nioiguchi tight and bright, ko-ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi running within the ha; the boshi turns in a refined ko-maru that very often sweeps with hakikake. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, an edge whose interest lies in the activity within rather than the height of the pattern. Within that shared vocabulary the members are told apart by habit. Kunitomo and Kuniyasu hold to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation, their nioiguchi clouding into urumi; Kuniyasu's linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school.
Kunitsuna is the divergence, a robust o-itame standing prominently over thick ji-nie, with conspicuously strong ha-nie that leans toward the Sagami manner about to be born. The later course runs through Norikuni, the bridge generation, into the tanto age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, where the temper settles into bright suguha in fine ko-nie. Kuniyoshi's tell is the nijuba, the doubled (at times trebled) line along the ha; Yoshimitsu's is the linear kuisagari dropping of nie into the ji beneath the boshi, his suguha a narrow hoso-suguha under a bright nioiguchi. For the collector the school divides into work that can be studied and work that can be owned. Its summit, Toshiro Yoshimitsu, crowns the close of the line; paired with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha, and ranked in the Edo period with Masamune and Go among the Three Great Works under Heaven, he is a smith met in the great collections rather than possessed, his signed tanto the standard against which every attribution is measured. His teacher Kuniyoshi, whose nashiji-hada the texts name outright, is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach, his o-suriage mumei katana anchored on the doubled line. The house also seeded the eastern tradition: Kunitsuna's transmitted descent runs on to Shintogo Kunimitsu, the de facto founder of Soshu, whose own refined nashiji steel passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it, and from whose quiet nie-laden suguha Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige drew the nie-midare of the mature tradition. The refined nie-suguha the brothers fixed was likewise the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, the two hands sitting so close in the eye that gold-inlaid Rai attributions appear on blades grouped with Hisakuni. To kantei an Awataguchi blade is to read the pear-skin steel first, then the quiet nie-laden suguha, then the swept boshi, and to know which brother or pupil the habits name; to acquire one, of any generation, is among the scarcest encounters early Yamashiro affords. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshimitsu吉光 | 1259-1260 | 44 |
| Kuniyoshi國吉 | 1275-1278 | 51 |
| Kunitsuna國綱 | 1240-1264 | 18 |
| Hisakuni久國 | 1190-1199 | 21 |
| Norikuni則國 | 1222-1224 | 15 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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 Wakizashi by Awataguchi Hisakuni from the early Kamakura period, around the Joukyu era. It is accompanied by an Origami from Hon'ami Shinzen. The blade features an ultimate Nashijihada, a bright and clear Jiba, and an elegant masterpiece with a slightly narrow Mihaba and deep Sori.
NihontoWatchohsuriage · Awataguchi · Kamakura · nagasa 46.5cm · sori 1.3cm
Awataguchi (Yamashiro) · Yamashiro · around 1190-1199
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 1%
Awataguchi Hisakuni worked at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Yamashiro in the early Kamakura period, and he is the second of the six Awataguchi brothers, the smith who used the personal name Tojiro (藤次郎). The published record sets the family out plainly: the founder is given as Kunika, and his sons were the six brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo (国清), Arikuni (有国) and Kunitsuna (国綱). That a community of smiths already stood at Awataguchi is attested in the early-Kamakura tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari[[c:1]], so this is a forge with a documented place in the literature of its own century, not a later reconstruction.
Hisakuni's standing inside that famous house is the first thing to recognise. The 14th Tokubetsu-Juyo entry calls his manner the most refined and dignified within Awataguchi work[[c:2]], and the 42nd Juyo entry ranks him foremost of the lineage in both technique and refinement of spirit. He is repeatedly named among the bangaji whom the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (後鳥羽院) summoned to forge on rotation at the cloistered court, and one record goes further and transmits him as a teacher to the sovereign (帝王の師). The history is not decoration here. It is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does.
Recognise his hand by the pure Yamashiro register. Over a tightly packed ko-itame, finely worked and dense with ji-nie, he tempers a quiet suguha that leans into a shallow notare, with small gunome and a little ko-midare mixed in, ko-ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi tight and bright, and kinsuji and sunagashi running in the ha. The boshi is a calm ko-maru, and very often it sweeps with hakikake; one Tokubetsu-Juyo katana records it exactly as a straight tip that brushes into a yakizume-like finish[[c:3]], and the same swept tip recurs across his katana and his tanto. The forging itself draws a recurring word from the appraisers, the so-called tataki-tsume look of a thoroughly consolidated jigane, and the Awataguchi steel praised of old as blue in colour with a white edge[[c:4]].
Among the brothers the connoisseurs single him out for nie. The 24th Juyo entry calls him the smith whose ji and ha carry nie most strongly, sometimes with a slightly coarse nie mixed in, while the 22nd Juyo tachi names him outright the most skilful forger of the six[[c:5]], its tight ko-itame and deep, faintly urumi nioiguchi recalling his younger brother Kuniyasu. His tanto show the same clarity in miniature: the wide, slightly curved Juyo-Bijutsuhin tanto is flagged as an unusual shape for Awataguchi, and the Honma note attached to it draws the very line that separates this house from its successors, the occasional eccentric proportion among Awataguchi tanto being a point of distinction from the Rai school.
His place in the wider road of Yamashiro steel runs through that contrast with Rai. The refined nie-suguha he and his brothers fixed at Awataguchi is the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, and through them the eastern Soshu smiths after; one of the katana grouped with him even carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Rai Kunitsugu, a reminder of how closely the early Yamashiro and later Rai hands sit in the eye. Signed work survives in the smallest numbers, a few tachi and tanto, most of them the bold two-character mei cut now with a thick chisel and now with a finer one, with the rare long Tojiro Hisakuni signature confirmed against the old sword books Kotoku Toezu[[c:6]] and Kozan Oshigata (光山押形). The blades carry the names of the great houses: the Kishu Tokugawa[[c:7]] and the Date (伊達家), the Matsudaira of Saijo and the Akimoto, with one tanto authenticated by a Hon'ami Kotsune origami dated Enpo 9.
For the collector the arithmetic is severe. A National Treasure and a small group of Important Cultural Properties stand to his name, several of them held in institutions, the Tokyo National Museum and Nikko Toshogu and Itsukushima Jinja among the recorded holders, where they can never trade. Only a handful sit in the Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo tiers, and those are spoken for by old daimyo provenance. A Hisakuni in private hands is therefore among the rarest things a student of the early sword can hope to meet, and when one appears it is the quiet, dignified, nie-laden suguha of the imperial forge, not the spectacle of a later age, that the buyer is acquiring.
Where Hisakuni 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.
Yamashiro-den · Yamashiro
4 pieces on the market now
The steel is the first thing one learns to read in Awataguchi work: a ko-itame kneaded so tight that the surface takes on the pear-skin sheen the texts name nashiji-hada, the ji-nie dusted over it fine and even, slender chikei threading through, the whole carrying a moist luster (潤い) and a clarity that recurs in notice after notice. This is the steel of the early Yamashiro tradition at its summit. The forge stood at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Kyoto, on the highway running toward Omi, and a community of smiths already worked there by the early Kamakura period; the tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari attests their presence, so this is a house with a documented place in the literature of its own century. The school is conventionally founded on the six brothers, Kunitomo the eldest, then Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, sons of the founder Kunika (also given as Kuniie). Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu were summoned as goban-kaji to forge on rotation at the cloistered court of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and Hisakuni is even transmitted as a teacher to the sovereign; that imperial patronage is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. What binds the house across four generations is restraint married to refinement. Over the nashiji-hada the brothers set a calm suguha leaning into a shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji, the nioiguchi tight and bright, ko-ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi running within the ha; the boshi turns in a refined ko-maru that very often sweeps with hakikake. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, an edge whose interest lies in the activity within rather than the height of the pattern. Within that shared vocabulary the members are told apart by habit. Kunitomo and Kuniyasu hold to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation, their nioiguchi clouding into urumi; Kuniyasu's linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school.
Kunitsuna is the divergence, a robust o-itame standing prominently over thick ji-nie, with conspicuously strong ha-nie that leans toward the Sagami manner about to be born. The later course runs through Norikuni, the bridge generation, into the tanto age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, where the temper settles into bright suguha in fine ko-nie. Kuniyoshi's tell is the nijuba, the doubled (at times trebled) line along the ha; Yoshimitsu's is the linear kuisagari dropping of nie into the ji beneath the boshi, his suguha a narrow hoso-suguha under a bright nioiguchi. For the collector the school divides into work that can be studied and work that can be owned. Its summit, Toshiro Yoshimitsu, crowns the close of the line; paired with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha, and ranked in the Edo period with Masamune and Go among the Three Great Works under Heaven, he is a smith met in the great collections rather than possessed, his signed tanto the standard against which every attribution is measured. His teacher Kuniyoshi, whose nashiji-hada the texts name outright, is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach, his o-suriage mumei katana anchored on the doubled line. The house also seeded the eastern tradition: Kunitsuna's transmitted descent runs on to Shintogo Kunimitsu, the de facto founder of Soshu, whose own refined nashiji steel passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it, and from whose quiet nie-laden suguha Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige drew the nie-midare of the mature tradition. The refined nie-suguha the brothers fixed was likewise the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, the two hands sitting so close in the eye that gold-inlaid Rai attributions appear on blades grouped with Hisakuni. To kantei an Awataguchi blade is to read the pear-skin steel first, then the quiet nie-laden suguha, then the swept boshi, and to know which brother or pupil the habits name; to acquire one, of any generation, is among the scarcest encounters early Yamashiro affords. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshimitsu吉光 | 1259-1260 | 44 |
| Kuniyoshi國吉 | 1275-1278 | 51 |
| Kunitsuna國綱 | 1240-1264 | 18 |
| Hisakuni久國 | 1190-1199 | 21 |
| Norikuni則國 | 1222-1224 | 15 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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).
