wakizashi;
blade
- Museum number
- 1958,0730.46.a
- Description
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Sword blade (wakizashi). Made of steel. Signed. With storage sheath (shirasaya); presentation mounting (koshirae) recorded separately.
- Production date
- 17thC(early)
- Dimensions
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Length: 30.70 centimetres (without tang)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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脇指 越中守正俊作 及び脇指拵
Blade for a wakizashi (companion sword) and a wakizashi mounting
A companion sword (wakizashi) was worn at all times, indoors and out, by men of the samurai class. This example has been taken apart so that you can appreciate the many pieces that make up the mounting.
They are: tsuba (sword-guard), hilt, scabbard, seppa (spacers), kokatana (utility knife), kogai (a pointed metal tool that splits to form chopsticks) and habaki (a collar, to ensure a tight fit of the sword into its scabbard).
The mountings were made by master craftsmen of the Mino school using a unique Japanese metal called shakudo - an alloy of copper with a small amount of gold and traces of 'moutain metal' (raw copper). This was then inlaid with designs of flowers in gold.
Along the cutting edge of the blade you can see a 'wave pattern', or hamon, in the grain of steel. Along the back edge of the blade, a atylized double-edged sword has been engragved, which is a Trantric Buddhist synbol.
Blade: steel, early 1600s made by Sanpin Masatoshi (worked early 1600s)
Mounting: metal, lacquer, textile, Mino school,
1600s-1700s
(Label copy, 2017)
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Smith et al 1990
The 'wakizashi' (companion sword) is worn at all times when indoors, and outdoors when the longer 'katana' is also carried. This example is broad-bladed in Momoyama style, with a gently undulating 'hamon' of 'nie'. It is decorated with a single groove on one side, and a stylised 'ken' (double-edged ritual sword in esoteric Buddhism) on the other.
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Harris 2005
This blade is 'kawarigata zukuri' (literally 'of unusual shape'). The 'omote' is 'hira zukuri', and on the 'ura' the 'shinogi ji' slopes down to the centre of the 'mune' from the upper part of the blade, so that the shape resembles a 'naginata'. The blade has been very slightly shortened and the almost unmodified tang has two holes with 'katte sagari' file marks and a 'kurijiri' tip. On the 'omote' there is a carving of a 'suken' located within a 'bohi', and on the 'ura' there is a 'vajra' with a 'soehi'. The grain is delicate 'itame with jinie'. The 'hamon' is irregular 'gunome' in 'nie' with 'ashi' and some gentle 'sunagashi'. The 'boshi' is 'notare' and returns somewhat sharply in the style known as 'sampin boshi'.
Masatoshi was the fourth son of Kanemichi of Seki, with whom he moved to Kyoto sometime in the early 1590s. His elder brother Kimmichi worked in the original Mino style after the work of the fourteenth-century Shizu smiths, and his descendants continued in Kyoto for several generations. The third brother Tamba no kami Yoshimichi worked variously in the Shizu, Yamato and Soshu styles, and developed the characteristic 'sudareba' (a type of layered 'hamon' resembling 'sudare', i.e. hanging bamboo curtain), which is found on the work of his descendants. Masatoshi was given the title 'Etchu no kami', probably after arriving in Kyoto, and his son received the title a few decades later. Although the signatures of the first two generations are not dissimilar, this blade is very much in the Momoyama shape, confirming that it is by the first Masatoshi.
The ribbed scabbard (also col. pls 19-20) is lacquered black. The fine matching metal fittings have chrysanthemums and other autumn flowers in gold high-relief inlay on a 'shakudo nanako' ground. The 'kozuka' and 'wari-kogai' have chrysanthemums in trellises. These are of seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Mino-school work.
- Location
- On display (G93/dc10)
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2006 Oct 13-, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Acquisition date
- 1958
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1958,0730.46.a
