Tegai Kanenaga
包永 (Kanenaga)
A Nara smith in Yamato of the late Kamakura period, founder of the Tegai school, one of the five Yamato schools.
Profile
Kanenaga worked around the Shōō era (1288-1293) by the Tegai gate of the Tōdai-ji temple in Nara, which gave his school its name, and tradition says he made tachi for the temple's warrior monks. He founded the Tegai school, one of the five of Yamato, which stayed active in the following centuries; according to one encyclopedia, the Mino smiths came from it.
Monograph
Tegai Kanenaga (手掻包永)
The founder of a Nara school of whom his blades are on record and little else, told with the level of evidence of each fact.
Read the monograph
Notable works
- Tachi signed Kanenaga of the Seikadō Foundation, in Tokyo: national treasure.
- Six signed tachi, important cultural properties, among them those of the Tokyo National Museum and the Shijōnawate shrine.