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Hōki and Osafune
Miyamoto Kanenori was born on the 25th day of the eighth month of Bunsei 13 (11 October 1830) in Ōgaki, in Hōki (today Misasa, in Tottori), the second son of a sake brewer. The Kotobank dictionary gives 1831. He became a smith out of admiration for his fellow countryman Hōki Yasutsuna, the maker of the Dōjigiri. In 1851, at the age of 22, he went to Osafune: Yokoyama Sukenaga did not take him in, but Yokoyama Sukekane (横山祐包) did, and with him he learned Bizen-den for seven years. From his master’s 包 (kane) comes the name Kanenori.
Kyoto and the emperor
In 1857 he returned to his home region as smith to Arao Naonari (荒尾直就), lord of Kurayoshi and councillor of the Tottori domain. In 1863 he settled in Kyoto, at Sanjō Horikawa, the district of Horikawa Kunihiro, and forged for samurai loyal to the emperor, among them the “twenty of Inaba” (因幡二十士, Inaba nijisshi). That is how he came to know Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (有栖川宮熾仁親王, Arisugawa-no-miya Taruhito shinnō). In 1866 (Keiō 2) he forged a sword for Emperor Kōmei and in 1867 received the title of Noto no Kami (能登守).
The Restoration and Fushimi Inari
After the Restoration he accompanied Prince Arisugawa and the Tottori troops to Kuwana, forging along the way. Back in Kyoto he spent more than a hundred and thirty days in retreat at the Fushimi Inari shrine to forge a votive sword; the signature of the tachi kept there speaks of a hundred days. He also forged the tachi and the tantō for the enthronement of Emperor Meiji.
After 1876
With the ban on wearing swords (廃刀令, haitōrei) of 1876 the commissions came to an end: he returned to his home region and made farm tools and kitchen knives. The Tokyo National Museum recalls it in connection with one of his blades: many smiths became country blacksmiths, and Kanenori too stopped forging for a time.
Ise and the imperial household
For the renewal of the Ise shrine (式年遷宮, shikinen sengū), the expert Imamura Nagayoshi (今村長賀), of the Yūshūkan museum of the Yasukuni shrine, recommended him to the emperor. With Hioki Kaneji (日置兼次), also from Tottori, he forged in a forge set up at the Yasukuni 66 tachi, 42 spear blades (鉾, hoko) and 3,800 arrowheads. The Japanese Wikipedia places the commission in 1886; Kotobank, the offering in 1889. On 4 April 1906 he was named an artist of the imperial household on the same day as Gassan Sadakazu, the first of that name: they were the only two swordsmiths who ever were. He mixed with artists such as the sculptor Takamura Kōun and the painter Kuroda Seiki. In 1915, according to the Japanese Wikipedia article on Miyamoto Kanenori (宮本包則), he forged the generalissimo’s sword (大元帥刀, daigensui-tō) for the enthronement of Emperor Taishō; the article in the same Wikipedia on the marshal’s baton (元帥杖, gensuijō) gives that sword to a Gassan Sadakazu, artist of the imperial household. Kanenori also forged the protective swords (護刀, mamori-gatana) of Prince Hirohito, the future Emperor Shōwa, and of Prince Chichibu, and the treasures of the Heian and Meiji shrines. He died on 24 October 1926, aged 97 by the Japanese count; he is buried in Somei cemetery, in Tokyo.
His place
The Japanese Wikipedia calls him the last smith of the house who served four emperors, from Kōmei to Shōwa, and the last of shinshintō to take on the five traditions. His weight among smiths is modest because his direct pupils, such as Iwane Norishige (岩根則重), died young. With Hayama Enshin he tried forging with Western iron, and he restored famous blades burnt in the siege of Osaka of 1615.