Project Description
Wood netsuke of Tekkai Sennin by Soshin
Standing on one foot as if walking, aided by his staff, on which he rests a hand and his chin. His tattered robes billow around his emaciated body and a gourd is attached to his belt. His mouth is closed tight in a grimace, and his eyes are double inlaid in dark and light horn
Signed on the gourd: Soshin. Kansai, circa 1800
Height: 6cm.
Compare with an almost identical netsuke in the Sydney L. Moss catalogue, More Things in Heaven and Earth, London 2006, pages 88-89, no. 37. A variant, with open mouth and ivory inlaid teeth, was published in an article on Soshin by Jay Hopkins in the International Netsuke Society Journal, vol. 30, no. 2 (Summer 2010), illustrated on the front cover and page 15. On the latter there is a close up of the face, showing the distinctive hanging eyebrows
MR2399
