A boar-tooth netsuke of a chilliBy Shimizu Shojiro, Iwami Province, dated 1789A small, smooth chilli with a detachable stalk made of stag-antler, signed Nihon San'indo Iwami-shu (Iwami-no-kuni) Enokawa Seiyodo Shi Tomiharu no otoko Shimizu Shojiro seinen junisai shite kore o chokoku toki ni Kansei gan tsuchinoto-tori uru'u rokugatsu nijuyukunichi nari (carved by the Eno River in Iwami Province in the San'indo region of Japan by Shimizu Shojiro, son of Seiyodo Shi[mizu] Tomiharu at the age of twelve on the twenty-ninth day of the sixth, intercalary, month of the first, tsuchinoto-tori, year of Kansei [1789]). 7.1cm (2¾in) long.注脚猪歯・鹿角彫根付　唐辛子　銘 「日本山陰道石見州可愛河青陽堂清富春男清水小次郎生年十二歳而彫刻之于時寛政元己酉閏六月二十有九日也 」　1789年Provenance:Carlo Monzino Collection.Sold at Sotheby's, London, 21 June 1995, lot 239.Published:Earle, Huthart, p.97, no.78.G. Lazarnick in NIA, p.1120, mentions a netsuke of a snail signed '... made by the second son of Tomiharu, at the age of twelve years old.' Lazarnick opines that the calligraphy, as on the present example, is very fine and may have been engraved by his father.For a similar example, see N. Davey, MTH, p.247, no.764, erroneously identified as a daikon radish, and attributed to Tomiharu, though also most likely carved by Shojiro at age twelve.