An Ivory Netsuke

SIGNED RYUCHIN (EDO/TOKYO), EDO/MEIJI PERIOD (MID/LATE 19TH CENTURY)

Details

An Ivory Netsuke
Signed Ryuchin (Edo/Tokyo), Edo/Meiji Period (Mid/Late 19th Century)
Katabori, stained ivory; an Edo figure group representing a venerable figure in court dress wrestling with Enma-O (one of the guardians of hell), his right hand pulling out Enma-O's left eye, the guardian lying on his back with his feet in the air, his right hand clutching at the fundoshi [loincloth] of an oni at the back of the other two figures, all the eyes inlaid in dark horn, the himotoshi formed by two holes in the base, signed underneath with incised and stained characters on a polished oval reserve Ryuchin
1 5/16 x 2in. (3.4 x 5.2cm.)

Lot Essay

Recorded by Ueda Reikichi as a pupil of the Edo carver Ryukei, Ryuchin is said to have been active from the Keio era to the Meiji period. It is unclear from Ueda's original text whether this reference should be interpreted as meaning that he worked only around the transition between these two periods of time, in other words around 1865-70, or whether the short Keio era (the last of the Edo period) and the whole of the Meiji period are meant. Subtle and possibly significant distinctions such as these are often lost in Bushell's popular adaptation.¹

1 Ueda Reikichi, Netsuke no kenkyu [A study of netsuke] (Osaka: Bun'endo, 1943), p. 225; Raymond Bushell ed., The Netsuke Handbook of Ueda Reikichi (Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1961), p. 275.

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