Izumi no Kami Kunisada

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The second Izumi no Kami Kunisada is better known as Inoue Shinkai, the name he took late in life. Born in Hyūga, the son of the smith Kunisada, he trained under his father in Kyoto from childhood before settling in Ōsaka. When his father died in 1652 he inherited the name and received the title Izumi no Kami; he served the Itō lords of Obi. Around 1661, after presenting work to the imperial court, he was permitted to engrave the sixteen-petal chrysanthemum on the tang, and he then signed Inoue Izumi no Kami Kunisada. In 1672, on the advice of the Confucian scholar Kumazawa Banzan, he adopted the name Shinkai and signed Inoue Shinkai until his death in 1682. He worked mainly in suguha, at times in a broad notare with gunome, over a fine jigane with dense ji-nie and a bright nioiguchi. He admired Gō Yoshihiro, which earned him the name Ōsaka Masamune. With Tsuda Sukehiro, with whom he made a few joint blades, he is regarded as one of the two pillars of Ōsaka shintō. His work is held in public museums in Japan and the United States.