Project Description
Parlty Lacquered Wood Netsuke of a Bowing Kumosuke (Tokaido Porter)
Bowing low in a dancerly pose with his wrists and legs crossed. He beams a broad smile, as well he might, given that his buttocks are entirely exposed. he wears the traditional outfit of his trade, a short jacket over a loincloth, as well as the idiosyncratic headgear secured by a thick padded chin strap. The eye pupils are inlays of dark material. One himotoshi is concealed within the voluminous left sleeve
Unsigned
Height: 5.7 cm
Provenance:
Col. J.B.Gaskell (label numbered 618)
Duncan Beresford-Jones
His collection, Christie’s London, 7th June 2000, lot 27 (£22,325) (with differently restored feet)
Dr. J. Kurstin
His sale, Bonhams New York, 16th December 2022, lot 1 ($21,675)
Compare with a weaker wood example in the Guy de Lasteyrie sale at Bonhams Paris, 14th June 2023, lot 25 (€14,080). The netsuke was the subject of a protracted diatribe by Alain Ducros, under the rubric of ‘Le coin du porc-épic’ in the ‘Bulletin de l’Association Franco-Japonaise’, no. 70, p. 30. This exercise in ridicule and toilet humour, not to mention a characteristic lack of tact towards the then buyer, says more about the prickly author than it informs us about the netsuke. True, its feet have been restored at least twice, and no doubt the current tabi are less obtrusive than the previous clogs, but if anything were to be broken in the long history of this great netsuke, it was always going to be those extremities
MR5324
