A fine wood netsuke of a snail


By Naito Toyomasa (1773-1856), Tanba Province, Edo period (1615-1868), early-mid 19th centuryEmerging from its shell and bending back over the top, its optic feelers fully extended and the fleshy part of the body trailing beneath, forming the himotoshi, the body carved all over with ukibori pimples and the pale wood slightly worn; signed in a rectangular reserve Tanshu Sasayama no ju Toyomasa, rokujuni-sai saku (made by Toyomasa, living in Sasayama, Tanba Province, at the age of 62). 4.2cm (1 5/8in) wide.
|ProvenanceJoseph Kurstin collection.PublishedBarbra Teri Okada and Mary Gardner Neill, Real and Imaginary Beings, The Netsuke Collection of Joseph and Edith Kurstin, New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 1980, no.66.For a very similar example, see Rosemary Bandini, Shishi and Other Netsuke: The Collection of Harriet Szechenyi, London, 1999, p.130, no.189.