Kazusa no Suke Kaneshige
上総介兼重 (Kazusa no Suke Kaneshige)
Swordsmith of Edo in Musashi, active around the Kanbun era (second half of the 17th century); son or pupil of Izumi no Kami Kaneshige.
Profile
Kazusa no Suke Kaneshige, whose civil name was Tsuji Sukeemon (辻助右衛門), worked in Edo, in Musashi province, around the Kanbun era. He was the son, or by other accounts the pupil, of Izumi no Kami Kaneshige (和泉守兼重), a smith from Echizen who served the Tōdō family. For a long time the two were taken to be one man; the question was settled by a blade of 1667, made jointly with the third-generation Yasutsugu of Edo, in which he gives his age as 43. He also made joint works with Hōjōji Masateru. His blades have the Kanbun shape, narrow towards the point; the steel is a well-forged ko-mokume with fine, bright ji-nie, and the wide hamon of notare with gunome, sunagashi and kinsuji comes very close to that of Kotetsu (虎徹). He signed Kazusa no Suke Fujiwara Kaneshige and variants of it; the Kazusa no Kami signature is considered the latest. Many of his blades carry gold-inlaid cutting-test inscriptions by the Yamano family. Tradition holds that Tōdō Heisuke of the Shinsengumi carried one of his blades.
Rankings
- Yoki-wazamono (very good) (Kaihō Kenjaku, 1797)
Swords available
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Kazusa-no-suke Kaneshige
Shintō katana signed Kazusa-no-suke Kaneshige with a gold-inlaid cutting-test inscription by Yamano Nagahisa (1661), NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon certificate, shirasaya with sayagaki and a koshirae with shakudō and gold fittings. Katana signed Kazusa-no-suke Kaneshige, a shintō smith whom the original seller places in Edo during the Kanbun era; the seller points out that the signature is cut in reisho (clerical) script, something they say they had not seen before on this smith. The blade has a nagasa of 73.9 cm and a sori of 1.0 cm. According to the seller, the jigane is a tight ko-itame with nie, and the hamon a gentle notare mixed with gunome, with thick ashi, deep nioi and, on the ura towards the monouchi, yubashiri reaching the shinogi-ji and sunagashi. The tang is ubu with two mekugi-ana and bears on the ura a gold-inlaid cutting-test inscription: two bodies cut in the second month of Manji 4 (1661) by Yamano Kaemon-no-jō Nagahisa. The sword comes with an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken certificate, legible in the photographs, and a shirasaya with sayagaki. It is accompanied by a koshirae with a textured black-lacquer saya, a tsuka with pale ito over same, and shakudō fittings with gold dragons among clouds; the tsuba carries a signature legible in the photographs, which reads as Yanagawa Naotoki. The seller adds that the sword was used at an appreciation meeting at NBTHK headquarters, and the photographs include pages of the related publication with the oshigata of the tang.
56.6/100
€33,610
