Sa Yukihide

Profile

Yukihide, of the Toyonaga family, was born in Asakura, in Chikuzen, and claimed to be a thirty-ninth-generation descendant of the Samonji smiths. He trained in Edo with Shimizu Hisayoshi, a student of Hosokawa Masayoshi, and in 1846 went to Tosa, where he worked with the domain smith Sekida Katsuhiro; from 1848 he signs Sa Yukihide. In 1856 he succeeded Sekida Katsuhiro as domain smith, also in charge of firearms, and in 1860 moved to the Tosa residence in Edo. He started from the Bizen manner and arrived at that of Sagami: long, robust blades with little curvature, a bright steel with ji-nie and a wide suguha with kinsuji and sunagashi; tantō are rare. He forged for Yamauchi Yōdō, Yoshida Tōyō and Itagaki Taisuke. His dated work runs from 1840 to 1870.