Inoue Shinkai
井上真改 (Inoue Shinkai)
An Osaka smith (c. 1630-1682), the second Izumi no Kami Kunisada, who signed Shinkai from 1672; with Tsuda Sukehiro the great name of Ōsaka shintō, called «the Masamune of Osaka».
Profile
Inoue Yoshitsugu was born around 1630 in Hyūga, son of the smith Izumi no Kami Kunisada; at nine he went with his father to Kyoto to learn, and very young he was already working for him. He worked mostly in Osaka. In 1652, on his father's death, he inherited the name and the stipend of the Itō of Obi and received the title Izumi no Kami. In 1661 the court allowed him to cut the imperial chrysanthemum on the tang, and in 1672 the Confucian Kumazawa Banzan gave him the name Shinkai, with which he signed from then on; as his lord's reserved smith, blades with that signature are few. He made mostly suguha, sometimes a large notare with gunome, on one of the finest jigane of Osaka, with dense ji-nie; he is said to have studied Gō Yoshihiro. He died suddenly in 1682. He made joint works with Tsuda Sukehiro. The Kaihō Kenjaku of 1797 ranks him wazamono.
Notable works
- A katana and a tachi of his are important cultural properties.
Rankings
- Wazamono (good) (Kaihō Kenjaku, 1797)
- Ōzeki (West) in Tomita Kiyama’s ranking of shintō smiths (1935)