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