Mutsu no Kami Yoshiyuki

陸奥守吉行 (Mutsu no Kami Yoshiyuki)

An Osaka smith brought to Tosa (1650-1710); the katana of Sakamoto Ryōma in the Kyoto National Museum is attributed to him.

Whole katana blade, almost straight, with the reddish tang on the right, on a black background.
Kyoto National Museum, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Profile

Yoshiyuki was the second son of the smith Harima no Kami Yoshinari and brother of Kōzuke no Kami Yoshikuni; sources disagree on whether he was born at Nakamura in Mutsu or at Sumiyoshi in Settsu. With his father and brother he learned in Osaka from the first Yamato no Kami Yoshimichi. Adopted by the Yamaoka family, in the Genroku era he was called to the Tosa domain, where he was magistrate of the smiths, so he is also called Tosa Yoshiyuki. He received the title Mutsu no Kami and is said to have died in Osaka. To him is attributed the katana of Sakamoto Ryōma that the Sakamoto family gave to the Kyoto National Museum in 1931, warped by a fire in 1913 and identified in 2015-2016 by the trace of its chōji temper line.

Monograph

Mutsu no Kami Yoshiyuki (陸奥守吉行) His quick profile and the essentials, with the level of evidence for each fact. Read the monograph

Rankings

  • Maegashira (East) in Tomita Kiyama’s ranking of shintō smiths (1935)

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