Sendai Kunikane
仙台国包一門 (Sendai Kunikane ichimon)
The house of Kunikane in Sendai: smiths to the Date who kept the masame of the Hōshō school alive throughout the Edo period.
Style and characteristics
A very regular, tight masame in the Hōshō manner, with a nie suguha hamon, sometimes with hotsure and nijū-ba, and a sober bōshi. It is one of the few shintō schools to follow a Yamato style.
History
The first Kunikane worked for Date Masamune and, according to tradition, trained in Kyoto under Etchū no Kami Masatoshi of the Mishina school; he received the title Yamashiro Daijō. His descendants signed Kunikane for more than ten generations as smiths of the Sendai domain, until the Meiji era.
Smiths of the school
- Yamashiro Daijō Kunikane 山城大掾国包