Katō Kunihiro

加藤国広

Also known as: Katō Kunihiro; a representative late work of Horikawa Kunihiro

Smith

Horikawa Kunihiro

Era

Early Edo period (early 17th century)

Type

Katana

Designation

Important Cultural Property

Location

Mitsui Memorial Museum, Chūō, Tokyo

Description

A Late Work of Horikawa Kunihiro

Katō Kunihiro is a katana forged in the later years of Horikawa Kunihiro, regarded as the father of the shintō (new sword) tradition, and measures roughly 69.4 cm (2 shaku 2 sun 9 bu) in blade length. It takes its name from its owner, Katō Kiyomasa, and is counted among Kunihiro's representative late masterworks.

Handed Down as a Wedding Gift

After Kiyomasa's death, the blade is said to have been carried, together with other of his cherished swords, as part of the wedding gifts when his daughter Yaso-hime married Tokugawa Yorinobu, Ieyasu's tenth son. Once Yorinobu became the founding lord of the Kii Tokugawa domain, the sword was handed down for generations as a treasure of that house.

From the Shogunal House to the Mitsui Family

In 1716, when the Kii domain's fifth lord, Tokugawa Yoshimune, became the eighth shogun, the blade is said to have been brought into the shogunal household, and was later granted to the Tayasu Tokugawa family, one of the Gosankyō branch houses. In the modern era it was acquired by the Mitsui family, and it is now held by the Mitsui Memorial Museum.