Izumi no Kami Kunisada
和泉守国貞 (Izumi no Kami Kunisada)
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
Lineage of two Ōsaka smiths in Settsu, father and son, who signed Izumi no Kami Kunisada between the 1620s and the 1670s.
Profile
Two smiths, father and son, worked in Ōsaka under the signature Izumi no Kami Kunisada (和泉守国貞), and the signature alone does not always tell them apart. The father, a native of Hyūga, trained in Kyoto under Horikawa Kunihiro (堀川国広) and settled in Ōsaka, where together with Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke (河内守国助) he laid the groundwork of the city's shintō. He received the title Izumi no Kami in the Genna era and died in 1652. He is called Oya Kunisada (親国貞), 'Kunisada the father'; his hamon are varied midare over carefully forged steel. In his last years his son forged and signed on his behalf. The son inherited name and title in 1652, was permitted in 1661 to carve the chrysanthemum crest (菊紋, kikumon) beside his signature, and around 1672 began signing Inoue Shinkai (井上真改); he died in 1682. His work leans towards suguha and notare, with dense nie and a bright nioiguchi. Works by both are among Japan's protected cultural properties.
Swords available
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Izumi no Kami Fujiwara Kunisada
Signed katana by the first Ōsaka Kunisada, 75.7 cm and of robust build, in a koshirae with matching kiri-crest fittings; NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken certificate declared by the original seller. Katana signed by Izumi no Kami Fujiwara Kunisada, the first Kunisada of Ōsaka. According to the original seller, he was born in Tenshō 18 (1590) at Obi in Hyūga, studied under Horikawa Kunihiro and trained with Echigo no Kami Kunitomo; he received the title Izumi no Kami in Genna 9 (1623), settled in Ōsaka and, together with Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke, laid the foundations of Ōsaka shintō. His second son, Inoue Shinkai, came to be called the “Masamune of Ōsaka”. The blade has a nagasa of 75.7 cm and a sori of 1.6 cm, with a robust shape; the seller describes a gunome hamon mixed with chōji, abundant nie and sunagashi, a bōshi with a deep return and muneyaki, in a showy piece of work. In the photographs the tang shows a single mekugi-ana and the signature on the omote, and appears intact. It is mounted in a koshirae with a ribbed reddish-brown lacquered saya, a tsuka of white same with black wrap and matching fittings — tsuba, fuchi-kashira, menuki, kozuka and kōgai — bearing the same gold kiri-type crest; the seller neither describes nor dates the mounting. The NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken certificate declared by the seller does not appear in the photographs.
49.8/100
€18,600
