Kinoshita Kaneshige
木下兼重 (Kinoshita Kaneshige)
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
Swordsmith of the Kinoshita family in Kanazawa, Kaga province, active in the mid-19th century.
Profile
Kinoshita Kaneshige (木下兼重) worked in Kanazawa, the seat of the Kaga domain, during the closing decades of the Edo period. He belonged to the Kinoshita family, a line of Kaga swordsmiths; by the school's tradition he was the son of a smith who signed Kanehisa. Blades by him are known dated 1850 and 1859. He used signatures such as Kashū-jū Fujiwara Kaneshige (加州住藤原兼重), sometimes with a kaō, or Kayō Kinpu-jū Kinoshita Jinnojō Fujiwara Kaneshige (加陽金府住木下甚之丞藤原兼重); by the late 1850s he added the honorary title Ise Daijō (伊勢大掾). The Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of History treats him, together with Seijirō Kiyomitsu (清次郎清光), as one of the two smiths who represent Kaga in the shinshintō era, and showed his work in 2021. A gunome-based hamon in the regional Kaga manner is attributed to him.
Swords available
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Ise Daijō Fujiwara Kaneshige
Katana signed and dated Ansei 6 (1859) by Kinoshita Ise Daijō Fujiwara Kaneshige, a Kaga smith retained by the Maeda house, with an ubu nakago, full koshirae and NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken certificate. Katana by Kinoshita Ise Daijō Fujiwara Kaneshige, a smith of Kaga province retained by the Maeda house. According to the original seller, he descended from the Kanemoto line of Seki (Mino), was born in 1815 as the eldest son of the eighth Kanehisa, received the title Ise Daijō in Ansei 6 and died in Bunkyū 2 at the age of 46. The blade, with a nagasa of 63.6 cm and a sori of 1.0 cm, is shinogi-zukuri with a chū-kissaki; the photographs show a suguha-based hamon with gentle undulations and a rounded bōshi. The nakago is ubu, with a single mekugi-ana, a full signature on the omote (“Kashū jū Kinoshita Ise Daijō Fujiwara Kaneshige”) and a date on the ura (“an auspicious day in the 8th month of Ansei 6”, 1859). It comes with a complete koshirae: an openwork iron tsuba with a dragon, dragon fuchi-kashira, a tsuka with same and blue wrap over gilt menuki, a black-lacquered saya and a blue-and-white sageo; the original seller neither describes nor dates the mounting. It holds an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken certificate, legible in the photographs.
47.3/100
€52,610
