SIGNED RYUSUI (IWAMI PROVINCE), EDO PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)

Details

A KOZUKA MADE FROM A HAIR ORNAMENT
Signed Ryusui (Iwami Province), Edo Period (19th Century)
A kozuka formed from a dark wood (probably black persimmon) frame fitted with a panel cut from a kanzashi [hair ornament], the panel incised and stained with twenty-one waka poems, signed at one end Ryusui
37/8in. (9.8cm.) long

Provenance

C. P. Peak Collection

Literature

Henri L. Joly and Kumasaku Tomita, Japanese Art and Handicraft, Loan Exhibition Held in Aid of the British Red Cross (London, 1916), no. 1253, pl. CLX

Exhibited

Red Cross Exhibition, 1915

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Ryusui (dates unknown) is thought to have been the pupil of either Bunsho (1764-1838) or Gansui (1809-1848), respectively the second and third members of the line of idiosyncratic Iwami Province netsuke carvers established by Tomiharu (1733-1810). Gansui in particular had a fondness for tours de force of miniature calligraphy, in one case carving the 100 poems of the Hyakunin isshu anthology on a single hairpin. Another panel, probably taken from the same original netsuke, also signed Ryusui and featuring ten poems, is in a kogai in the Behrens collection and is likely to have formed a set with the present lot. See Henri L. Joly, W.L. Behrens Collection, pt. III. Sword-fittings (London, 1912), cat. no. 486, pl. III.

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