Hōju
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
A name kept by a branch of the Maikusa smiths of Mutsu from the Heian to the Muromachi; a black-lacquered tachi with a blade signed Hōju is an important cultural property.
Profile
Hōju is not a smith but a workshop name. According to Bunka Isan Online, of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it is the branch of the Maikusa, the early smiths of Mutsu (today Iwate), that kept the same name from the Heian period to the Muromachi. That is why blades signed Hōju belong to very different times and cannot be given to a single hand; in the old treatises, moreover, the name appears written in several ways.
The works of secure date are from the Kamakura and the Nanbokuchō. Two of them, a tachi and a wakizashi dated 1364, are in Ichinoseki: they were among the swords requisitioned after the war by the occupation forces, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs transferred them to the city in 1999.
Notable works
- Black-lacquered tachi with the blade signed Hōju on the tang, of the Kamakura period: important cultural property since 1950, at the Mitake shrine in Tokyo.
- Tachi signed Hōju, 70.1 cm, with a gunome and chōji temper, of the Kamakura or the 14th century: property of the city of Ichinoseki since 2016.
- Wakizashi signed Hōju and dated 1364, of the Nanbokuchō: property of the city of Ichinoseki since 2016.