Project Description
Tall Boxwood Netsuke of a Shishimai Performer, Attributed to Kokeisai Sansho (Osaka, 1871-1926)
Standing with a somewhat gormless smile, his mask held over his shoulder with its textile cape wrapping around him
Long inscription: “komeya … jugyoku saku ansei uritsu [no] haru kaigyokusai utsuru” [copied by Kaigyokusai from the property of Komeya by Jugyoku in Ansei year of the hare] with seal on a bone tablet “masatsugu”
Height: 9.3 cm
Provenance:
Harry Seymour Trower collection (no. 66 in Joly’s catalogue, unillustrated)
Information:
This is a real puzzle of a piece. First of all it looks nothing like any work that one knows by Kaigyokusai, and secondly the inscription is clumsy and the kai character not written in the way one expects on genuine work. In general it seems to have much more in common with the work of Sansho. Another possibility is that it is by Kaigyokusai’s grandson Masateru. In terms of subject matter, though not of execution, the subject calls to mind the Rantei of a pilgrim with tengu mask which was formerly in the Behrens collection, now in Russia, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum ‘Netsuke, Japanese Miniature Sculptures from Private Collections’, 2016, no. 176
MR4918
