An Ivory Netsuke
An Ivory Netsuke

UNSIGNED (KYOTO OR EDO), EDO PERIOD (EARLY 19TH CENTURY)

Details
An Ivory Netsuke
Unsigned (Kyoto or Edo), Edo Period (Early 19th Century)
Katabori, heavily stained ivory; a group depicting I no Hayata slaying the nue, I no Hayata in the usual pose straddling the monster and driving a short sword into its right side with his right hand, the tail in the form of a snake rising up behind him, the himotoshi formed by an unusually large oval hole in the base connecting with one in the nue's left side
1 5/8 x 1½in. (4.1 x 3.9cm.)

Lot Essay

The very large himotoshi hole suggests that this carving is a Kyoto piece by a follower of Okakoto, who appears to have specialised (in addition to his other carvings, see Lot 39) in simple narrative netsuke. The design, from a picture book by Tachibana Morikuni first published in 1720 and reprinted in 1770, represents an episode from the thirteenth-century chronicle Heike monogatari. In 1153, an extraordinary beast was seen on the roof of the Imperial Palace and its malign influence was believed to have brought on the fatal illness of the Emperor Konoe. One night the archer Yorimasa succeeded in shooting the monster without killing it, and, on closer inspection, it turned out to have the head of a monkey, a tiger's paws, a badger's body, a snake for a tail. The creature was finally despatched by Yorimasa's retainer I no Hayata.1

1 Joe Earle, Netsuke: Fantasy and Reality in Japanese Miniature Sculpture (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2001), cat. nos. 141-2.

More from AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION OF NETSUKE

View All
View All