Kantei

In museums, shrines and lists

Famous works

No work of his is designated by the State, but the three National Museums of Japan and the one in New York hold blades signed by him.

On this page
  1. Documented works
  2. Note
  3. In the lists
  4. Gallery

Documented works

WorkDesignationWhere it is
Katana 肥前国住近江大掾藤原忠広 (Hizen no kuni jū Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 74.4 cm, sori 1.8 cmNo designationKyūshū National Museum (F92)
Wakizashi 近江大掾藤原忠広 (Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 51.9 cm, with carvingsNo designationKyūshū National Museum (F7)
Katana 肥前国住近江大掾藤原忠広 (Hizen no kuni jū Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 76.2 cm, sori 1.3 cm, a mature work with carvingsNo designationTokyo National Museum (F-20244)
Katana 肥前国住近江大掾藤原忠広 (Hizen no kuni jū Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 69.5 cm, sori 0.9 cmNo designationTokyo National Museum (F-19983)
Wakizashi 近江大掾藤原忠広 (Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 53.4 cm, sori 1.2 cm, with its mountingNo designationTokyo National Museum (F-20161)
Katana 肥前国住近江大掾藤原忠廣 (Hizen no kuni jū Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara Tadahiro), 71.4 cm, sori 2.1 cmNo designationKyoto National Museum (E甲564)
Wakizashi with its mounting, signed Ōmi Daijō Fujiwara TadahiroNo designationThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2000.294)
Katana with its mounting, dated 1632, which the museum gives to the “second Tadahiro”No designationThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36.25.1751a, b)
Daishō with their mountings, the katana dated 1636, which the museum gives to the “second Tadahiro”No designationThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36.25.1751-1752)
Wakizashi made with his son, the third Tadayoshi, around 1680, with 稲荷大明神 (Inari Daimyōjin) drawn in the temperOffering to a shrineYūtoku Inari shrine, Kashima (Saga)

Note

The two New York blades dated 1632 and 1636 predate the title of 1641 and the signature that includes it: the attribution to the second Tadahiro is doubtful. The wakizashi of the Yūtoku Inari shrine was made known by the Saga Shimbun in 2020; the shrine’s museum considers it extremely rare, because it bears characters formed by the temper.

Two famous blades of the Tokyo National Museum also signed Tadahiro are not his: the museum attributes to Musashi Daijō Tadahiro the katana F-336, with its tachi mounting, and the Important Art Object F-19997.

In the lists

The 懐宝剣尺 (Kaihō Kenjaku), the Yamada cutting list of 1797, places him among the 21 ō-wazamono (大業物, ō-wazamono), the second of its four grades; the Japanese Wikipedia calls him “shintō jōjō-saku and ō-wazamono”. In Tomita Kiyama’s ranking of shintō smiths (1933, published in 1935), modelled on the ranks of sumō, he appears among the honorary ranks, as sewanin, outside the east and west blocks; his father is yokozuna of the west.

He is not recorded in the Kyōhō meibutsuchō (享保名物帳, Kyōhō meibutsuchō), and no work of his is recorded as designated a National Treasure or an Important Cultural Property.