Tanba no Kami Terukado

Profile

Terukado (照門) was a Seki smith in Mino province, of the Zenjō (善定) house, one of the local branches that trace their origin to Kaneyoshi. He first signed Kanekado (兼門); around 1659, on receiving an honorary title of Tanba province, he took the name Terukado, and signatures are known both as Tanba no Daijō (丹波大掾) and as Tanba no Kami (丹波守). When the Ujifusa (氏房) line moved to Nagoya in Owari, the headship of the Seki smiths, the Seki-kaji-tōryō (関鍛冶頭領), passed to his house. Besides Seki he worked in Kuwana in Ise and in Edo, and some of his signatures record the use of nanban-tetsu (南蛮鉄), imported iron. His steel is a dense ko-itame with ji-nie and masame along the shinogi-ji; the hamon, in nie-deki with a wide nioiguchi, ranges from suguha with hotsure to ō-gunome-midare mixed with hako-midare. After him the house went back to signing Kanekado.