Project Description

Wood Netsuke of a Seated Tiger by Naito Toyomasa, from the French collection shortly to be published on the site.  We are currently proof-reading the pages

A darkish wood netsuke of a faintly comical male tiger, sitting asymmetrically on one haunch with its head turned right back to look behind it. The body is covered all over with a pattern of incised and stained stripes, with spots along the length of the spine, and the tail snakes back and up behind. The eyes are, typically, inlaid in bulging, translucent pale horn with inlaid black pupils. The canines protruding from beneath the upper lip are of inlaid bone
Signed.
Tamba.
Circa 1825
Length: 4.2 cm
At the time of the Epstein interview (op. cit.) it was thought that this was the only Toyomasa tiger with inlaid fangs. There is in fact at least one other, which is still in the Naito family, illustrated in Kazutoyo Ichimichi’s article Naito Toyomasa: part 1, INSJ, 20/4, p. 21
Literature:
Eskenazi advertisement on the back cover of the Journal of the International Netsuke Collectors’ Society, 4/3, illustrated
Eskenazi, Eighteenth to twentieth century netsuke, 1978, n° 26
Joy Epstein, Portrait of a Collector [Willi Bosshard] in Netsuke Kenkyukai Study Journal, 3/1, pp. 24 and 26, described and illustrated
S.L. Moss advertisement in the INSJ, 27/3 p. 36, illustrated
S.L. Moss, Such stuff as Dreams are Made on, n° 59
Provenance:
Sale, Sotheby’s London, 23rd June, 1976, lot 117
Eskenazi, 1976
Parry Hill, Tokyo
Willi Bosshard collection
Sydney L Moss, 2006-2007, purchased by the present owner
MR3984