Shichirōemon no Jō Sukesada

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Shichirōemon no Jō Sukesada is the name of several Sukesada (祐定) of Osafune, in Bizen, who are distinguished by the tsūshō Shichirōemon (七郎右衛門) cut before the name, as in the signature 備前國住長船七郎衛門尉祐定 (Bizen no Kuni-jū Osafune Shichirōemon no Jō Sukesada) on a blade dated to the Tenshō era. The first worked in that era (1573-1592) and was a son of the second Genbei Sukesada. He adopted his younger brother Tōshirō (藤四郎), Genbei's fourth son, who inherited the name Shichirōemon; for that reason the signature alone does not tell which of the two made a blade. The son of that Tōshirō, Yokoyama Tōshirō Sukesada (横山藤四郎祐定), of the Keichō era, survived the flood of the river Yoshii (吉井川) in 1590-1591, which devastated Osafune, and from him the Edo-period Yokoyama line descends. In it the name was used again: a Shichirōemon Sukesada, a grandson of Sōzaemon, worked in the Genbun era (1736-1741), and another in the An'ei era (1772-1781).