I would like to announced that we have arrived at Volume 9 of Honma’s Appraisal Diary. This volume, which covers the years 1981~1982, introduces on ca. 425 pages 295 blades, meaning we have now arrived at a total of about 3,400 pages of text and exactly 2,613 featured blades in this series. The price is $99, which includes shipping.
Thank you very much for your attention!
If you would like to order a copy, and/or have any questions, please PayPal said amount to, or reach out via: markus.sesko@gmail.com
PS: When this series is complete, we will have reached ca. 4,000 pages of text and ca. 3,000 introduced blades.
Because of the upcoming Dai Tōken Ichi (DTI) sword fair in Japan, I was asked by several readers if I can do another eBook Super Sale with ALL of my eBooks being reduced by 50%. This offer will be valid for until after the show, i.e., early November, so you have enough time to decide. So fill up all your tablets/phones (or laptops) with all the important Nihonto and Tosogu reference material you need four your studies on the ground!
Once again, it goes directly via me (i.e. I’m not going to manually change all the prices on Lulu.com and then change them back when the sale is over). I provide a list of all my eBooks below, showing the regular and the reduced prices. I also linked them so that you can check what the description says but again, DO NOT buy over there at Lulu.com this time. Get in touch with me via “markus.sesko@gmail.com” and pay me directly, either by PayPal using the very same email address, by check, or by credit card using the donate button at the very bottom of this page, and I’m going to send you over the eBook. And anyway, if you gave a question, just drop me a mail.
I am not certain about the exact month, but it was in fall of 1995 that I bought a Japanese sword (a fake), which I mark as my official starting point into the field of Nihonto. Remember reading about Japanese swords in a book on edged weapons from around the world as a teenager that I think already hooked me up as it had a b/w drawing of a Masamune blade, but too vague to pin down. So, 30 years it is, and what a journey. Hope I am in for another 30 years as it only feels like a first step, but let’s see what my aging body has to say about that, lol 😇 Maybe after the next 30 years I feel comfortable enough for balloons and confetti…
Whilst working on the last few chapters of Volume 4 of the Tōsōgu Classroom, I came across a signature that made me scratch my head a little, but which I eventually figured out. So, I thought it is interesting enough to share here.
Stumbling block was Fukushi Shigeo Sensei making a reference to an en suite set of daishō fittings by Honjō Yoshitane (本荘義胤). Most of you likely know that Yoshitane was an engraver extraordinaire from the school of Taikei Naotane (大慶直胤, 1779–1857), who, apart from adding horimono to sword blades, also made tsuba and other sword fittings. In said reference, Fukushi quotes the signature of the fuchi as: “Sōō zuchū Yoshitane” (漱王図中義胤). This mei suggests that Yoshitane modelled the work after a painting/design (Japanese: zu, 図) of a certain Sōō (漱王). However, zuchū (図中), lit. “in the figure/illustration” as in “as shown in the figure/illustration” is odd and does not make much sense in this context. Also, who was Sōō? As “painting/design” is mentioned, the first thought it of course that Sōō was a painter, or, to be more precise, the art name (gō) of a painter. A quick search, however, did not yield anything related, only an ancient Korean king named Hae Mo-su (解慕漱王). Very unlikey that its him that Yoshitane references in his signature…
Next step, as Fukushi mentions that the set is Jūyō, is to check the explanation in the respective Jūyō volume, Shinsa No. 22 from 1974 (see picture below). By the way, this set is only one of two works of Honjō Yoshitane that passed Jūyō (the other being a daishō-tsuba, Shinsa No. 62, 2016).
First thing that becomes obvious, Fukushi mis-quoted the signature of the fuchi, or it was a mistake in layout when that issue of the Tōken Bijutsu magazine was put together. Anyway, in the Jūyō volume, the NBTHK quotes the signature as: “Sōō enchū Yoshitane” (漱王園中義胤), “Yoshitane, in the Sōō Garden.” The mei makes a little more sense now, if you will, but raises the next question: Where is or was the Sōō Garden, which I had never heard of before?
As a new search didn’t yield much either, I double-checked the actual fuchi and its signature in the Jūyō volume, and lo and behold, the NBTHK mis-quoted the signature too! The blown up detail from the scan of that page shown below is not the best, but if you look closely, you can see that the mei actually begings with the character oite (於), and that there is a small dot towards the very right of the character ō (王), which makes it the character gyoku (玉) (hence the “stupid” title of this post). Also see how the right radical (欠) of the character for Sō (漱) is also difficult to discern as it touches the seam of the lid of the fuchi.
With all this, I am pretty confident that the signature is: “Sōgyoku enchū ni oite, Yoshitane” (於漱玉園中義胤), “Yoshitane, in the Sōgyoku Garden.” And this also makes complete sense now as there actually was a Sōgyoku Garden, whose remains are located on the premises of the Sannōgū Hiyoshi-jinja (山王宮日吉神社) in Miyazu (宮津), Kyōto Prefecture. To provide some background, it is said that the garden was designed in Shōhō four (正保, 1647) by Kyōgoku Takahiro (京極高広, 1599–1677), the then Daimyō of the fief of Miyazu, and was later enlarged at the end of the 1670s by Nagai Naonaga (永井尚長, 1654–1680), who had become the Daimyō of Miyazu in 1674.
But this is not the end of the story, meaning, there is more to unravel here. Realizing that said garden is located in Miyazu immedately rang a bell in the context of the set being a work of Honjō Yoshitane. Some of you might now that Yoshitane’s master Taikei Naotane did some extensive traveling throughout his career, and he also produced blades in all the locations he visited. That is, reading of Miyazu, I immediately remembered some blades by Naotane that bear what is referred to as a “hot stamp” (koku’in, 刻印) in the shape of the character Miya (宮) (see some examples below). Naotane used several of these hot stamps to mark where he had produced blades apart from mentioning it in the signature.
From dated blades of Naotane and from written information provided by his student Hosoda Naomitsu (細田直光), better known as Kajihei (鍛冶平), we know that Naotane had been to Miyazu in Kaei two (嘉永, 1849). What is also interesting is that the daishō-tsuba of Yoshitane’s set are signed: “Taikei Naotane kore o kitaeru Morinobu no zu, Yoshitane” (大慶直胤鍛之守信図 義胤), “Yoshitane, after [Kanō] Morinobu, [plates] forged by Taikei Naotane.” So, we can assume that Yoshitane had accompanied Naotane on his trip to Miyazu in 1849, where he made the set of fittings, or at last parts of it, i.e., the fuchigashira, using plates for the tsuba that had been forged by his master.
In conclusion, I would like to say that sometimes difficult to interpret signatures, or such that are wrongly quoted, can lead to some nice revelations after some research. Also, now you know one of the many reason for why working on projects like the Tōsōgu Classroom takes so long (the other ones mostly being me 😇).
PS: Below is a sneak peek of an overview of Taikei Naotane’s travel destinations that will be elaborated on in an article on him I am still working on. Miyazu is the one marked 1849 on the north coast of Honshū.
I would like to announced that we have arrived at Volume 8 of Honma’s Appraisal Diary. This volume, which covers the years 1979~1980, introduces on ca. 430 pages 317 blades, meaning we have now arrived at a total of about 3,000 pages of text and exactly 2,317 featured blades in this series. The price is $99, which includes shipping.
Thank you very much for your attention!
If you would like to order a copy, and/or have any questions, please PayPal said amount to, or reach out via: markus.sesko@gmail.com
PS: When this series is complete, we will have reached ca. 4,000 pages of text and ca. 3,000 introduced blades.
The other day, I posted on my IG (@swordtranslator) one of the only five surviving signed works by Norimune (則宗), who is regarded as the founder of the prestigious Fukuoka-Ichimonji (福岡一文字) School, and who was active 800! years ago, being traditionally dated around Jōgen (承元, 1207–1211). The blade I posted is the one that is in the Imperial collection (gyobutsu), which was once presented to Emperor Meiji (明治天皇, 1852–1912) by the Asano (浅野) family, and which is completely ubu.
So, for the sake of completeness, I thought I post the other four signed works of Norimune here, plus, of course, also the gyobutsu, which shall be introduced first. That said, please enjoy the line-up, and may this brief post serve as a reference for Fukuoka-Ichimonji Norimune for the one or other in the future.
Picture 1: Gyobutsu, tachi, mei: Norimune (則宗), nagasa 78.2 cm, sori 2.7 cm, ubu, former heirloom of the Asano (浅野) family.
Picture 2: Kokuhō, tachi, mei: Norimune (則宗), nagasa 78.5 cm, sori 2.6 cm, ubu, collection of Hie Shrine (日枝神社), once presented to said shrine by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (徳川綱吉, 1646–1709).
Picture 3: Jūyō-Bunkazai, tachi, mei: Norimune (則宗), nagasa 80.1 cm, sori 3.3 cm, ubu, collection of Okayama Prefectural Museum, former heirloom of the Tsuchiya (土屋) family.
Picture 4: Jūyō-Bunkazai, tachi, mei: Norimune (則宗), nagasa 69.7 cm, sori 2.3 cm, suriage, collection of Mitsui Memorial Museum, former heirloom of the Tsuchiya (土屋) family.
Picture 5: Tokubetsu-Jūyō Tōken, tachi, mei: Norimune (則宗), nagasa 72.3 cm, sori 2.3 cm, ubu, private collection.
The picture above shows, roughly in proportion, a juxtaposition of these five blades (Picture 1~5, from left to right). Wouldn’t that be a once-in-a-lifetime display at a study meeting? 😇
But there is slightly more… Well, there is a leather-covered (kawazutsumi) tachi-koshirae designated as a Jūyō-Bunkazai (picture 6), which holds a blade signed “Norimune,” but which is described in the designation with the suffix mei ari (銘アリ), roughly meaning “inscribed,” rather than “signed.” In other words, the signature is possibly not authentic, or has not yet been authenticated (the sword was designated as a Jūyō-Bunkazai in 1950, by the way, and is owned by the Atago Shrine [愛宕神社], Kyōto).
In a recent conversation I had with a collector, the topic of the “uneven playing field” of available blades to study between Japan and outside of Japan came up. Obviously, the chances to study more (fine) blades and the ability to dip into a much greater pool of makers is vastly “skewed” towards Japan.
With this discussion as a context, I thought about how to put together some concrete data regarding this issue, and I mean, with students of Nihontō as focal point. First of all, I thought that the emphasis should be on opportunities of hands-on study and not just about which museums you can visit to see blades behind glass. Also, sword rotations at museums are often not announced, so it is a bit tricky to tell what one can see at any given moment.
All that said, most obvious choice for looking for tangible data is the NBTHK, as they publish the blades that are presented for Kantei and study at their monthly Tōkyō Teirei Kanshō (定例鑑賞, “Regular Appreciation”) meetings in the Tōken-Bijutsu magazine. One can attend these meetings by becoming a member, and I attended some in the early 2000s at their old place in Yoyogi.
So, my “data experiment” was as follows: Assuming you were the bestest boy/girl and attended every single monthly meeting the last 25 years, I wanted to know what blades you would have “under your belt” by now. With this, I created a spreadsheet that lists all the makers/schools featured across basically 300 meetings, that contains the usual era differentiation (K for Kotō, S for Shintō, and SS for Shinshintō), and that lists how often blades by a certain maker/school were on display, plus the actual number of blades by said maker/school as more or less regularly, the same blades are shown over the years. That is, if a smith has 10 for “No. of display” and 5 for “No. of blades” in the spreadsheet linked later, for example, it means that 5 of his works were out in 10 meetings, meaning that some were shown multiple times.
Disclaimer before we continue: Sometimes, meetings are not reported in the Tōken-Bijutsu magazine, or only the blades are briefly mentioned via just the name of the smith, e.g., “last month, we had a Hizen Tadayoshi, a Rai Kunimitsu…” As these omissions usually only happen once a year, and as I also wanted to focus on the concrete number of individual blades, which is impossible by just a name drop and not at least also mentioning nagasa, etc., I left those out in the spreadsheet. And then there was Covid, so there were no meetings and mostly just three blades were introduced in the magazine every month just to keep the tradition alive, if you will.
So, if you had attended ALL those aforementioned meetings over a span of 25 years, you would have seen about 850 blades by roughly 300 makers/schools, with the age distribution being about 200 Kotō, 80 Shintō, and 20 Shinshintō. The files linked below are PDFs of said spreadsheet, one in alphabetical order that makes finding a maker/school easier, one in descending order of makers/schools having been presented over the years and one in descending order the number of featured blades by the latter.
As you can see in the preview below, there are some of the “usual suspects” among the most featured makers/schools, but also some interesting quantities. For example, I would not have thought that the Õsaka-Shintō smith Oya-Kunisada (親国貞) constitutes number three. And he is also number two behind Kotetsu in terms of featured blades, on the same place with Tsuda Sukehiro (助広) and Seki Kansada (兼定).
As a bonus, I also added all the Kantei, referred to as Shijō Kantei (誌上鑑定), that were presented in the magazine over the last 25 years. Over these 25 years, roughly 240 blades by ca. 130 makers/schools were presented, meaning again that some were featured several times. The agre distribution in case of the Kantei blades is about 70 Kotō, 40 Shintō, and 20 Shinshintō. Again, I am linking three PDFs, one in alphabetical order and two regarding the occasions and number of blades, respectively. Incidentally, I also added the Tōken-Bijutsu numbers in case you want to find a certain Kantei blade.
Interesting here is that the top two makers put out for Kantei are Hizen Tadahiro (忠広) and Osafune Motoshige (元重), and also that Hizen Yukihiro (行広) is so high up there being presented six times over the years.
That said, I hope you enjoy going through the lists, and maybe they confirm (or dismiss) a hunch one had about what blades were out for hands-on study at the NBTHK over the last 25 years.
The title of this short article is not really catchy, but I didn’t want to say “yet another interesting blade” again. In any case, what got the ball rolling, if you will, is the blade shown in picture 1 below, a wakizashi made by a little known local swordsmith, but more on this later, because as always, I would like to start with some historical background.
Picture 1: Wakizashi, mei: Ishikawa Masanao saku (石川正直作), kinzōgan-mei: Horie Okinari + kaō (堀江興成「花押」). Nagasa 40.0 cm, sori 1.2 cm.
For a better understanding of the context, we have to go back to the summer of Hōreki four (宝暦, 1754). Hachisuka Yoshihisa (蜂須賀至央, 1737–1754), then only 17 years old and holding the office of ninth Daimyō of the Tokushima fief (徳島藩) in Awa province on Shikoku for less than two months, was about to die. As he had no son yet, he adopted on his deathbed Satake Yoshisue (佐竹義居, 1738–1801), the fourth son of the Daimyō of the quite distant Iwasaki fief (岩崎藩) in Dewa province, Satake Yoshimichi (佐竹義道, 1701–1765) (Picture 2). So, Yoshisue found himself as newly fledged Daimyō being himself only 16 years old (or 17, according to the then Japanese way of counting one’s age), adopting the name Hachisuka Masatane (蜂須賀政胤). All this took place in Edo, not in Awa province, which Yoshisue/Masatane visited for the first time in the fourth month of Hōreki five (1755) after having his genpuku ceremony and having changed his name one last time to Hachisuka Shigeyoshi (蜂須賀重喜) (Picture 3).
Picture 2: Map with relevant places.
Shigeyoshi entered his rule at a time when after the affluent Genroku era (元禄, 1688–1704), the Shōgunate and most of the fiefs realized they had to tighten their belts. With the eighth Tokugawa Shōgun Yoshimune (徳川吉宗, 1684–1751) at the forefront, it was a time of widespread reforms all across the country. Accordingly, also Shigeyoshi wanted to improve the financial situation of his fief. He initiated a barrage of measures, with one of them being the patronage of the arts and crafts in order to stimulate his economy.“Good for us,” Shigeyoshi had a fondness for swords and sword fittings. So, what he did was sending some of his most promising swordsmiths to Edo to study with masters like Suishinshi Masahide (水心子正秀, 1750–1825) and Ozaki Suketaka (尾崎助隆, 1753–1805), one of them being the maker of the blade in question shown in picture 1, Ishikawa Masanao (石川正直).
Picture 3: Hachisuka Shigeyoshi.
Masanao had made said blade after his stay with Suishinshi Masahide and had presented it to his Daimyō Shigeyoshi, who is said to have cherished it a lot. I also want to point out a nice little detail: The dragon horimono on the omote side of the blade bears centrally the encircled swastika crest of the Hachisuka family (Picture 4, left). Also, it is safe to assume that Masanao had engraved the horimono himself as a gassaku (joint work) between him and his father (or older brother, depending on the source) Ishikawa Masamori (石川正守) exists, which is inscribed: “Ashū Ishikawa Masamori tsukuru – Kansei jūnen nigatsu hi, Ishikawa Masanao horu” (阿州石川正守造・寛政十年二月日、石川正直彫) – “Made by Ishikawa Masamori from Awa province on a day of the second month Kansei ten (1798), engraved by Ishikawa Masanao” (Picture 4, right).
Picture 4
All that said, what caught my attention with this blade is the fact that it bears the kinzōgan-mei “Horie Okinari + kaō” (堀江興成「花押」). Some of you might have heard this name as Horie Okinari (?–1844?) was a famous Kinkō master, who had trained with Hamano Shōzui (浜野政随, 1696–1769), with the Ōmori (大森) School, and with Ozaki Naomasa (尾崎直政, 1732–1782). What ties everything together is that Okinari was also employed by the Hachisuka family, as part of said patronage in order to stimulate the economy of the Tokushima fief. Even if Shigeyoshi was removed from power relatively early in his rule, more on this in a second, I tend to think that Okinari was hired by Shigeyoshi himself. Reason for this assumption is that Shigeyoshi gifted the very blade introduced in this article at some point to Okinari, who is said to have inlaid his name and monogram in gold on the tang himself. Or, the gift came later by the retired Shigeyoshi as a reward for the longstanding service Okinari provided for the fief.
Anyhow, we have here another case where a sword (or a sword fitting) can unravel so much historical context, if you dig. Research of this kind, and provenance research in general, is a part of my service that I really enjoy, and I encourage everyone who has a Japanese arms and armor object that is engraved/inscribed with a name to dig, and I don’t say that as a shameless business plug!
All that said, I would like to conclude with narrating the remainder of Hachisuke Shigeyoshi’s life. As indicated, he was removed from power, and that was in Meiwa six (明和, 1769) after 15 years into his tenure as a Daimyō and on orders of the Shōgunate, which forced him to retire, as it was of the opinion that his fief reform measures were not as successful as desired. So, the year after his removal from office, Shigeyoshi moved back to Edo, but returned once again to Tokushima in An’ei two (安永, 1773) for a medical treatment. After recovering, however, he lived quite the high live down on Shikoku, which once again upset the Shōgunate, which wanted him to come back to Edo to live in house arrest in the Edo residence of the Tokushima fief to enable a more effective Bakufu supervision. Well, Shigeyoshi was able to avoid that by moving to a different local residence in Awa province, where he eventually died in Kyōwa one (享和, 1801) at the age of 64.
Last but not least, I wanted to add that Shigeyoshi was also “otherwise” quite active. He had 16 sons and 14 daughters with his wife Tsutehime (伝姫 , 1737–1802) and with his concubines, of which there were at least four.
Continuing the tradition, an Easter eBook Super Sale where ALL of my eBooks are reduced by 50% is back on! This offer will be valid for until April 28, so you have enough time to decide what you want. So fill up all your tablets (or PC´s) with all the important Nihonto and Tosogu reference material you need four your studies!
Once again, it goes directly via me (i.e. I’m not going to manually change all the prices on Lulu.com and then change them back when the sale is over). I provide a list of all my eBooks below, showing the regular and the reduced prices. I also linked them so that you can check what the description says but again, DO NOT buy over there at Lulu.com this time. Get in touch with me via “markus.sesko@gmail.com” and pay me directly, either by PayPal using the very same email address, by check, or by credit card using the donate button at the very bottom of this page, and I’m going to send you over the eBook. And anyway, if you gave a question, just drop me a mail.
Markus Sesko 