Hōjōji Masatsugu
法城寺正次 (Hōjōji Masatsugu)
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
Swordsmith of the Hōjōji school of Edo, in Musashi, in the shintō period; he signed with the title Izumi no Kami.
Profile
Swordsmith of the Hōjōji school of Edo, in Musashi, an offshoot of the Hōjōji line of Tajima. He signed Izumi no Kami Hōjōji Tachibana Masatsugu. School tradition holds that he was a pupil of Masahiro and worked alongside him before receiving the title Izumi no Kami; few signed blades are known. Nothing more is recorded, nor whether more than one smith used the name.
Swords available
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Izumi-no-Kami Hōjōji Tachibana Masatsugu
Signed katana of the Edo branch of the Hōjōji school, 62.9 cm nagasa with bō-hi on both sides, with NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken origami and a gold-flecked lacquered saya mounting. A work by Izumi-no-Kami Hōjōji Tachibana Masatsugu, a smith of the Edo branch of the Hōjōji school, which originated in Tajima and continued the line of the kotō smith Hōjōji Kunimitsu. According to the original seller, he trained under Ōmi-no-Kami Hōjōji Tachibana Masahiro and received the Izumi-no-Kami title only after his master's death, so his signed works are very scarce. The blade, a shintō piece of about the Kyōhō era, measures 62.9 cm nagasa with 1.5 cm sori and carries bō-hi on both sides. The photographs show an ubu nakago, as the original seller states, with a crisp signature and two mekugi-ana. It is accompanied by an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken origami, legible in the images and issued for this signature, together with the 1951 Japanese registration. It comes with a koshirae whose saya is lacquered dark with gold mottling, a tsuka with pale ito and menuki, an iron tsuba and dark fuchi-kashira with gilt motifs, plus a shirasaya.
55.3/100
€7,300
