Yamashiro kami Fujiwara Kunikiyo is a son of Shimada Sukemune.
born at Shinshu Matsumoto province.
After that he studied under Horikawa Kunihiro.
He changed his name to Kunikiyo and after Kanei 4th, he got the title of the Yamashiro Daijo.
and after that he changed it to Yamashiro no Kami.
After his great master Kunihiro passed away, he moved to Matsumoto Shinsyu province and from thereHe moved to Echizen province and followed Daimyo Matsudaira who was ordered to move Echizen
by Tokugawa Shogun. This era is his most skilled years.
He passed away Keian 2nd at 60 years of age..
Kunikiyo is famous for his style of sugu-ha and hada akin to Hizen Tadahiro and can be mistaken for the best of Hizen Tadahiro work. The hada can appear to be veryb similar to honoku hada made dfamous by the Hizen school but with a Horikawa Kunihiro flare. This is an exceptional Daisho that high end collectors look for and cherish when found.

Dr. Kanzan Sato, former director of the NBTHK (the sword museum of
Japan) writes in his book The Japanese Sword  that Yamashiro no Kami Kunikiyo was the most famous swordsmith in the Shinto (Edo
period) that was granted permission to stamp the 16-petal kiku-mon imperial family chrysanthemum on the nakago of his swords. Kunikiyo first left his hometown of Suruga province to Kyoto and became a star student of grandmaster swordsmith Horikawa Kunihiro. He received the Horikawa kanji character for Kuni whereupon he became Kunikiyo. He left Kyoto in 1614 after his master’s death. Kunikiyo was retained by the powerful daimyo (lord) MatsudairaTadamasa and moved to Fukui to join him in 1624. Only the finest smiths could be retained by such royalty in Japan. In 1627 he received the honorary title Yamashiro no Daijo which is when he received permission to engrave the 16-petal kikumon. A year later, in 1628, Kunikiyo’s title became the more prestigious Yamashiro no Kami (Lord of Yamashiro [Kyoto] province). Kunikiyo is thought to have died in the second year of Keian (1649) at the age of 60. Several generations of Kunikiyo followed. Kunikiyo is renowned for producing a fine suguha (Straight) hamon. Rarely are we treated to such a wonderful Soshu creation with thick nioguchi in gunome midare and plenty of hataraki that we see in this katana. He would have learned these skills from his time under Kunihiro.

This blade comes mounted in the original Daisho Koshirae. Please note that the mounts where displayed for many years with one side out and the other to the sunlight. Therefore one side shows a little fading on both koshirai.  This however does not detract from these amounts as they are completely original and of super quality. The wearing of daishō was limited to the samurai class, and became a symbol or badge of their rank. Daishō may have became popular around the end of the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573)as several early examples date from the late sixteenth century^.An edict in 1629 defining the duties of a samurai required the wearing of a daishō when on official duty. During the Meiji period an edict was passed in 1871 abolishing the requirement of the wearing of daishō by samurai, and in 1876 the wearing of swords in public by most of Japan’s population was banned; this ended the use of the daishō as the symbol of the samurai, and the samurai class was abolished soon after the sword ban. This pair is elegantly lacquered in a gloss black/brown. The tsuba is of a matching iron sukashi crane design. The fuchi/kashira are of a lovely shakudo and gold signed with the artist’s kao. The menuki are of exceptional also. The motif is of a bird with a floral drop. The tsukamaki is original and in an elegant gold string wrap all original to the sword. The sageo’s antique and are black.