Echizen
越前の刀工 (Echizen no tōkō)
The smiths of Fukui: Yasutsugu’s Shimosaka school and the families who came from Seki, the so-called Echizen Seki.
Style and characteristics
Blades of the hokkoku-mono group, with an itame jigane of dark tone and some masame. The hamon runs from suguha to notare with gunome, its nie sometimes uneven, strongly marked by the Mino tradition; the bōshi tends to the Sanpin form.
History
With the fief Tokugawa Ieyasu gave his son Yūki Hideyasu, smiths from Ōmi and Mino came to Fukui. The first Yasutsugu, of the Shimosaka school, received the character «Yasu» from Ieyasu and leave to engrave the Tokugawa hollyhock on the tang, and his line worked for the shogunate between Edo and Echizen. The families from Seki, with Kanenori, Kanetane, Shigetaka and Hirotaka, formed Echizen Seki.
Smiths of the school
- Echizen Kanenori 越前兼則
- Echizen Kanetane 越前兼植
- Echizen Yasutsugu 越前康継
- Harima Daijō Shigetaka 播磨大掾重高
- Hirotaka 汎隆
- Masanori 正則
- Shimōsa Daijō Kanemasa 下総大掾兼正
- Shimosaka Tsuguhiro 下阪継広