UNSIGNED (KYOTO OR OSAKA), EDO PERIOD (EARLY/MID-18TH CENTURY)

Although officials of the Dutch East India Company could be seen every year in Kyoto or Osaka (where this netsuke was carved) as they made their way to Edo (Tokyo) for their annual meeting with the shogun, these figures are essentially fantasies combining features from several different cultures. The cockerel, long but mistakenly thought to be the result of direct observation of Dutch customs, alludes to an earlier type of figurine, the Saga ningyo [doll]. Saga dolls were made in Kyoto during the seventeenth century and often depict a child holding a dog or bird and wearing clothes with a wave-crest motif, exactly like this carving. This connection with earlier doll-carving, coupled with the recent discovery of a depiction of a proto-netsuke (either Chinese or Japanese) in a screen painting dating from about 1635, may lead in time to a re-assessment of the chronology of some of these early figure netsuke; the current dating might well be about half a century too late.