Courtesy of Sesko’s,

UJIFUSA (氏房), 1st gen., Genki (元亀, 1570-1573), Mino/Owari –

“Kanefusa” (兼房), “Nōshū Seki-jū Kanefusa saku” (濃州関住兼房作), “Ujifusa” (氏房), “Fujiwara Ujifusa saku” (藤原氏房作), “Saemon no Jō Fujiwara Ujifusa” (左衛門尉藤原氏房), “Wakasa no Kami Fujiwara Ujifusa” (若狭守藤原氏房), “Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa tsukuru” (若狭守氏房造), “Ujifusa Nyūdō” (氏房入道), first name Kyōzaburō (京三郎), he changed his first name later to Seizaemon (清左衛門), third son of the 3rd gen. Kanefusa (兼房), he was born in the third year of Tenbun (天文, 1534) in Mino´s Gifu (岐阜) but moved already in young years to Seki, however, in Eiroku ten (永禄, 1567) he went again to Gifu Castle (岐阜城) where he received the honorary title Saemon no Suke (左衛門少尉) on the 19th day of the fourth month Eiroku 13 (1570), shortly later, on the 22nd day of the fourth month Eiroku 13, he received the title Wakasa no Kami (若狭守), in Tenshō five (天正, 1577) he moved to Azuchi (安土) but returned to Gifu after the death of Oda Nobunaga in 1582, he moved later a last time, to Kiyosu (清洲) in Owari province, where he died in the fifth month of the 18th year of Tenshō (1590) at the age of 57, during his early years when he signed with Kanefusa he hardened a gunome-midare with a tight nioiguchi and tobiyaki in the Sue-Seki style, with his name change to Ujifusa his style shifted more and more towards the soon-to-be-developed shintō style, i.e. to an itame mixed with masame and fine ji-nie and a large dimensioned gunome-midare with chōji and tobiyaki, we also find ō-notare with gunome-ashi or sunagashi, his blades have mostly a magnificent sugata with a wide mihaba and an ō-kisaki, in earlier years he signed the title Wakasa no Kami small and on the shinogi-ji of the tang and below and noticeable bigger the part “Ujifusa,” over time the entire signature shifts to the center of the nakago and becomes uniformly sized, chūjō-saku