The Theme of a JapaneseNetsuké

Abstract

In The Art Bulletin, Vol, V, no. 1, September, 1922, in an article entitled “Themes of the Japanese Netsuké-carver,” the present writer published a netsuké (PI. X, 16), the legend of which, recently discovered by her, is the subject of the following note.The discovery was made accidentally during the examination for another purpose of the Zōho Ehon Hōkan, an illustrated book of the same character as the Ehon Jikishihō, which was mentioned in the previous article. The latter book, by Tachibana Morikuni, consists of nine volumes—the two parts of the sixth volume are, however, bound separately, making in actual number ten volumes—and was published in 1745.1 The former in nine volumes was the joint production of several men: the text was composed by Tachibana Muneshigé, the illustrations were made by a man of the Hasegawa family, whose given name the colophon omits, and the whole manuscript was edited by Teikwan and finally published in 1687, some years earlier than the book by Morikuni. This publication, like its successor, made accessible to designers of prints, lacquer objects, and textiles, and to carvers of netsuké for popular purchase, many old Chinese legends which had been handed down for centuries as trade secrets from one artist to another in the hereditary line of painters of the classic schools.