Bidspirit auction | Important Japanese Samurai WAKIZASHI Sword

Important Japanese Samurai WAKIZASHI Sword by TADAYOSHI - Important Japanese Samurai WAKIZASHI Sword by TADAYOSHI ~ Early Shinto period. In its beautiful gold inlaid furniture with fine lacquer work to scabbard. Beautiful and very beefy blade with a large blood-groove to each side, showing very nice active Hamon tamper-line. Tang is signed ”Tadayoshi”. Circa 17th century. The Hizen school centered in Saga town on the western side of Japan was one of the glorious successes of the Shinto period. It is founded by Hashimoto Shinsaemonjo who took on the art name of Tadayoshi, under the sponsorship of the daimyo Nabeshima Naoshige. The house style is based on the work of Yamashiro Rai, and swiftly gained and maintained a reputation for high quality swords, both beautiful and practical with excellent cutting ability. ~~~~~Tadayoshi was born in 1572 and began learning sword-craft at the end of the koto period. His father was a swordsmith of average average ability who signed under the name Michihiro. His lineage descends from the Sa school. Michihiro died in 1584 and Tadayoshi was orphaned. His father and grandfather (Morihiro) were both in the service of the Nabeshima daimyo and at the time of his father's death, Tadayoshi was too young for service. Instead he took up sword crafting in the village of Nagase-Mura. Roger Robertshaw's excellent reference books The School of Hizen Tadayoshi states that his teacher was likely Iyo no jo Munetsugu. Tadayoshi may have taken on some learning from the nearby Dotanuki school as well. ~~~~~At the age of 25 with some 12 years of study under his belt, Tadayoshi had entered the service of Nabeshima Naoshige as a swordsmith, and was sent to study under the great master Umetada Myoju in Kyoto. Myoju was able to produce high quality copies of the work of Shizu and Sadamune, and early Tadayoshi work of this period follows his teacher in exploring these forms. Throughout the history of the Hizen school a Midareba which is based on this work appears as part of the repertoire its smiths. Myoju seems to have taken a liking to the young Tadayoshi as he co-signed several of his works stating that “This Tadayoshi is my student” on the nakago as a soemei. Umetada Myoju granted Tadayoshi the tada character which has been faithfully handed down the main Hizen line ever since. ~~~~~After three years under Myoju, Tadayoshi returned to Hizen and with funds made available through the Nabeshima daimyo he set up his forge and took on sixteen relatives and 60 or so local workers under employment in sword manufacture. Over the years he would sign his swords in various different ways, beginning with a simple five character signature (gojimei) Hizen (no) Kuni Tadayoshi. Though most of his work is not dated, the changes in his signature allows us to group his work into periods. Without going too deeply into the details, for more study on the signature I will simply refer you to Roger Robertshaw's book. During this time Tadayoshi also continued to experiment with midareba and it would be a common form seen in other smiths of the Hizen school such as Tadakuni and Masahiro. In spite of this, the core style of Hizen remained centered around Rai in its settled form of the late Kamakura and early Nanbokucho. ~~~~~Tadayoshi tempers various hamon but he shows himself at his best in suguba that reminds us of Rai Kunimitsu. (Token Bijutsu 556). ~~~~~After much success and ever increasing skill in sword making, in 1624 Tadayoshi received the honorary title of Musashi no Daijo during a visit to Umetada Myoju in Kyoto. At this time he also received the noble clan name of Fujiwara from the Imperial Court. In commemorating these events he changed his name to Tadahiro, a combination of his teacher's name and his father's name, making for a new long signature of Hizen (no) Kuni ju Musashi (no) Daijo Tadahiro. His son would inherit the Tadahiro name and we generally refer to him with the nickname Omi Daijo from his own honorary title. Tadayoshi would not live to see his grandson, the third generation who resumed the name Tadayoshi and who would rival him in talent. ~~~~~The Hizen school was very prosperous towards the end of Tadayoshi's life. After he changed his name to Tadahiro, some other habits seem to appear. One is that dates more frequently appear on his blades, and those with the Tadahiro signature tend to show his highest degree of skill. There are about 96 Juyo blades by Tadayoshi which is an extremely high number for a Shinto smith. 58 of these represent his work up until the name change at age 53. The next 8 years of signing his name Tadahiro show 38 more Juyo. This represents 2.4 Juyo per year of work in the first part of his career. For the last part under the Tadahiro name this rises to 4.75 Juyo per year. During the end of his life he dealt with a fair amount of sickness too,