Japan, 18th century, Edo period (1615-1868)Of slender form, the legendary general wearing full armor and seated atop a horse, his face with a stern expression as he strokes his long beard with one hand while the horse shows an amusing expression with large fearsome eyes as it buckles under his weight. The plug at the top is carved in the form of his headdress. The cord channel running through the natural opening underneath and the pierced himotoshi to the back.HEIGHT 7.5 cmCondition: Very good condition with minor wear.Provenance: Ex-collection Richard R. Silverman, purchased from the Knut Collection, Tokyo, 1978. Richard R. Silverman (1932-2019) was a renowned Asian art collector with one of the largest private collections of netsuke outside of Japan. He lived in Tokyo between 1964 and 1979 and began to collect netsuke there in 1968. Since the 1970s, he wrote and lectured about netsuke and was an Asian art consultant for Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams. His gift of 226 ceramic netsuke to the Toledo Museum of Art constitutes perhaps the largest public collection of these miniature clay sculptures in the world. After moving to California, Silverman became a member of the Far Eastern Art Council at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1984. In 1993, he joined LACMA’s Executive Board. He served on the board of directors for the International Society of Appraisers from 1986 to 1994 and served nine years as chair for the City of West Hollywood Fine Arts Commission. Richard Silverman was posthumously awarded the Order of the Rising Sun for his decades-long promotion of Japanese culture.Auction comparison:Compare a related stag antler netsuke of Kan’u on horseback, dated to the early 19th century, at Lempertz, 6 December 2014, Cologne, lot 763 (sold for 2,108 EUR).