Kantei
Courtyard of a Shinto shrine with gravel, a grey-roofed pavilion and large white lanterns bearing a chrysanthemum.

663highland, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Important Cultural Property · treasures of Minase

Famous works

A tachi attributed by tradition, two National Treasures that are not swords and a sword that exists only in a tale.

On this page
  1. The 菊御作 (kiku gosaku) tachi
  2. The treasures of Minase
  3. Other traces
  4. Gallery

The 菊御作 (kiku gosaku) tachi

  • Tachi with a chrysanthemum for a signature, 太刀 銘（菊紋）菊御作 (tachi mei kikumon kiku gosaku), of the Kyoto National Museum: an Important Cultural Property (重要文化財, jūyō bunkazai) since 29 August 1950, from the Kamakura period.
  • The museum presents it as a sword by Go-Toba: it is an attribution of the tradition, not proven.
A long, curved tachi on a black background, with the rusted tang on the right.
The 菊御作 (kiku gosaku) tachi of the Kyoto National Museum, an Important Cultural Property: 78.1 cm blade. Kyoto National Museum, via ColBase · ColBase terms of use · source

The treasures of Minase

The Minase shrine, in Shimamoto (Osaka), stands on the site of the Minase palace and venerates Go-Toba. It keeps two National Treasures that are not swords: his portrait in colour on paper, 紙本著色後鳥羽天皇像 (shihon chakushoku Go-Toba tennō zō), attributed to Fujiwara no Nobuzane, and his testament with the prints of his hands, 後鳥羽天皇宸翰御手印置文 (Go-Toba tennō shinkan otein okibumi), of 1239.

Other traces

  • In one version of the 太平記 (Taiheiki), the Tenshō one, Kusunoki Masashige gives his son Masatsura a “菊御作 (kiku gosaku)” sword when they part at Sakurai. The Japanese Wikipedia warns that the episode is considered fiction.
  • In 1935 the Dai Nihon Tōshō Kyōkai revived the rotations with twenty-four smiths.
  • The NBTHK journal (issue 721, 2017) recalls Go-Toba's gesture of putting a chrysanthemum on the tang as a precedent for a daimyō of the end of the shogunate who put the hollyhock crest on his own.