Bungo Yukihira
豊後行平 (Bungo Yukihira)
A smith from Bungo province, on Kyūshū, between the end of the Heian and the start of the Kamakura period; the earliest known to engrave horimono on curved blades.
Profile
Yukihira worked in Bungo between the end of the Heian and the start of the Kamakura period; one of his tachi bears the date Genkyū 2 (1205). He signed «Bungo Koku Yukihira saku» on the ura of the tang, and the NBTHK gives him the nickname Kishin Taiu, which is not his signature. He is the earliest smith known to have engraved horimono on curved blades: kurikara, bonji, Jizō or cherry blossoms at the base of the blade. His tachi are slender, with a deep koshizori and a ko-kissaki, a tight ko-itame steel with a moist look and a suguha, sometimes with ko-midare, with a subdued nioiguchi and a yaki-otoshi above the machi. Tradition links him to Sadahide, a monk and smith of Mount Hiko, as his master or his pupil.
Monograph
Bungo Yukihira (豊後行平)
A smith with no documented biography, known for his signed blades and his engravings, told with the level of evidence of each fact.
Read the monograph
Notable works
- Kokin Denju no Tachi: a signed tachi that Hosokawa Yūsai gave to Karasumaru Mitsuhiro in 1600; national treasure since 1951, at the Eisei Bunko.