Shen Xinpei
Lineage & School of Heritage
Shen Xinpei is the fourth-generation heir of the Shen Guanglong Sword Shop. From childhood he learned the craft from his father, Shen Huanzhou, and from his two uncles, and he thoroughly absorbed the unique ancestral sword-forging techniques of the shop.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1948, a native of Longquan, Zhejiang. National representative bearer of Longquan Sword Forging Craftsmanship, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Among the established old-brand sword shops of modern Longquan, the one with an orderly line of transmission and the greatest influence is the Shen Guanglong Sword Shop, founded by Shen Tingzhang. Shen is fastidious in the selection of materials, as the saying goes, "ten jin of rough iron yield five jin of steel." The blades he forges are dense in structure and clear in their pattern; the scabbards are made of choice rosewood and remain fresh through the years. The fittings are exquisite and the decorations distinctive: on the "Qing Longquan" sword, for example, the pommel, guard, scabbard mouth, retaining ring, and lanyard loop are all cast in copper by the ancient lost-wax method, the guard carrying a yazi-pattern bronze fitting in the style of the mid-to-late Qing dynasty. The rigorous production process and the secret sword-forging formulae handed down in the family make the swords forged by Shen Xinpei tough and sharp, able to cut through iron as though it were mud, with a natural color and a frost-like luster. In 1995 Shen Xinpei was awarded the title of "Folk Artist of Arts and Crafts" by the China Society for the Study of Folk Literature and Art. Representative works include the Zhizun Sword, the Qiankun Sword (Qiankun Saber), the Xuanwu Sword, the Jiugui Sword, and the Lengyue Sword.
Honors & Recognition
Building on the inherited tradition, Shen Xinpei has also actively developed new products; to date he has created more than twenty new varieties, among which the Riyue Qiankun Sword and the Riyue Qiankun Saber have been granted national patents.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。