**SOLD** Wood Netsuke of a Mushroom and Chestnuts

Wood Netsuke of a Mushroom and Chestnuts

Well carved with fastidiously executed gills to the mushroom, ridges and stippling to the small chestnuts, the cap hollowed out with a large himotoshi for the knot of a cord

I can find no other comparable netsuke by a carver named Nobuhisa, though I have seen a compositionally identical netsuke by the same hand with the gills painted black, the whole embellished with metal ants, pewter inlays and a metal tablet with Gambun signature. I would love to think that I have bought one of his works, but I doubt it. However, I do believe that this is the same anonymous artist responsible for a much larger netsuke of a snail on mushroom which was previously in the Katchen collection, bought and sold by me (Arlette Katchen, Netsuke 7, vol.2, p. 393, no. K638; Bonhams London, The Julius and Arlette Katchen Collection of Fine Netsuke: Part III, 6th May 2018, lot 152)

Scratchy signature: nobuhisa saku. Second half 19th century

Width 4.8cm

MR4512