Prospective purchasers are advised that several co… Read more

Skeletons in Japanese Art Melinda Takeuchi Professor of Japanese Art History, Stanford University Whoever wore this charming skeleton-shaped toggle must have been a foppish rake with a mordant sense of humor. In all cultures skeletons are poignant reminders of the ephemeral nature of worldly existence. Objects of revulsion, their depiction serves as an admonition about reprisal in the next life for misdeeds committed in this one. One branch of Buddhism advocated meditating in graveyards; the images of its ferocious deities were abundantly furnished with skulls enveloped in flames. Medieval Japanese Buddhist paintings depicted the "Nine Stages of Decay," a sort of East-Asian Vanitas: the impeccably dressed and made-up court lady shown in all her finery in the first image undergoes a progressive sequence of weakness, death, and decomposition until at the end we are treated to the gruesome sight of her bones - hair clinging to them - are gnawed by wild animals. It is a Buddhist sermon - vividly preached - on karma and impermanence. Needless to say, skeletons were not decorative items in Buddhist circles. Attitudes changed with increasing access to Western science during the 18th century. In 1639 the Tokugawa government issued the last of its Seclusion Edicts; the only Europeans allowed to remain on Japanese soil were traders from the Dutch East India Company. These merchants quickly realized that, in addition to curiosities like clocks and fabrics, many Japanese - from the shogun downwards - were thirsty for knowledge of Western learning. Traders began including printed books on everything from astronomy to anatomy in the holds of their great ships. Coteries of Japanese called Rangakusha [Scholars of Dutch Learning] embarked on the serious study of Dutch language and Western culture. One particularly influential offering, The New Anatomy by the German doctor Adam Kulmus (1689-1745), changed the course of Japanese medicine and had a correspondingly profound ripple effect in visual culture. This slim copperplate volume, which had been translated into Dutch in 1734 as Ontleedkundige Tafelen, included numerous illustrations of skeletal and organic structures of the human body. (See https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/kulmus_home.html) After viewing a copy of the book, a group of Dutch scholars bribed the executioner of a female criminal in 1771 to let them perform an autopsy on the corpse. Astonished at the correspondence between the illustrations and the reality, they set about translating it into Japanese. The result, Kaitai shinsho [New Book of Anatomy], published in 1774, captured the populace's attention. Skeletons, drawn with seemingly scientific accuracy, began appearing in ever increasing numbers in popular prints of the 19th century. This phenomenon was accompanied by an increasing taste for the macabre and the gruesome, as witnessed in numbers of kabuki plays that included horrific effects. One playwright, Tsuruya Nanboku, appeared in his own coffin onstage. Some scholars attribute this social malaise to the escalating threat of foreign warships demanding access to Japan. People sensed that the end of the world as they knew it was imminent - and they were right. The skeleton netsuke offered here served as a toggle for a small lacquer medicine box attached by a cord to the belt and worn by fashionable townspeople - rather like the fobs used with pocket watches in the West. And like watch fobs, these small items were chosen with care to make a statement about the wearer. Our skeleton speaks of a kind of black bravado, rather like the British troops who flummoxed the enemy by yelling "Marmalade!" when charging into battle. The figure appears to be suspended limply (presumably from the cord that held it), rather like the skeleton of a hanged person. And yet there is something rather coy, even whimsical, in the position of its right hand, the raised left partial-arm, the neatly placed feet, the coquettish tilt of the head, and the almost winsome grin. It is the ultimate irony, which no doubt the wearer would have appreciated, that this memento mori was paired with a pouch carrying life-giving medicine. The grinning skeleton had the last laugh.

A Sashi Style Stag Antler Netsuke

SIGNED SESSAI [HOKKYO SESSAI (1820-1879)]

Details

A Sashi Style Stag Antler Netsuke
Signed Sessai [Hokkyo Sessai (1820-1879)]
Of an intricately detailed skeleton, the bone structure clearly defined
12cm. high

Provenance

Raymond Bushell

Literature

Raymond Bushell, Collector's Netsuke, (New York, 1971), no.160, illustrated, p.108, no.160
Hollis Goodall et al., The Raymond and Frances Bushell Collection of Netsuke, A Legacy at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Chicago, 2003), p.423, no.685

Special notice

Prospective purchasers are advised that several countries prohibit the importation of property containing materials from endangered species, including but not limited to coral, ivory and tortoiseshell. Accordingly, prospective purchasers should familiarize themselves with relevant customs regulations prior to bidding if they intend to import this lot into another country.

Lot Essay

The middle years of the Edo period were a time of increased awareness of European ideas of anatomy, making skeletons an ideal subject for netsuke not only because the material, ivory, was particularly suitable for depicting bones but also because netsuke carvers were so interested in creating portable representations of everything that was novel and strange.

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