Kever op een tand

Deze netsuke is vervaardigd uit een berentand. De voorstelling is zodanig gesneden en gepolijst dat de vorm van de ondergrond de suggestie van de hele tand behoudt. De kever vormt met de ondergrond echter een geheel. De kever is bijzonder natuurgetrouw gesneden. Bij deze netsuke is een koordgat uitgeboord aan de achterzijde; dit gat staat in verbinding met de zenuwholte van de tand. Engelse tekst: This netsuke was carved from a single piece of a tooth, cut and polished in such a way as to suggest that the beetle rests on a whole tooth although there is no separation between the two parts. The beetle is represented with great accuracy. A hole drilled for the cord at the back of this netsuke communicates with the hollow part of the tooth whose opening of course occurs at the base where the tooth was cut off, just above the root. The signature etched with a needle reads 'Iwami no kuni Kawaigawa Seiyodo Bunshojo' "carved by Seiyodo Bunshojo at Kawaigawa in the province of Iwami". Seiyodo Bunshojo was the carver's name of Bunshojo or, also, Iwao Seiyodo, both artist's names of Shimizu Onoe (1764-1838), daughter of the renowned netsuke carver Tomiharu (1723-1811), who was also known as Iwao. This Tomiharu was the founder of the school of carvers known as the Iwami school after the province in which the artists worked. This school is known especially for the use of tusks of the wild boar as material. The subjects of the carvings were usually taken from nature. Onoe herself was one of the very few women who became carvers, and was not only a very good netsuke maker but also an accomplished haiku poetess. Onoe's speciality was spiders and insects on boars' tusks. She succeeded her father as Iwao II, and it is thought that some of the work signed by her father was actually made by her. In craftsmen's circles which knew the hereditary succession of an artist's name, it was highly exceptional to apply this practice to a woman. Traditional Japanese clothing offered little besides the sleeves to put things in. Netsuke, toggles, were therefore used to hold small purses, pouches, and boxes on the belt. The cord attached to, for example, a small pouch was pulled through under the belt and attached to the netsuke, which kept the cord and the object it belonged to from sliding away. By the end of the seventeenth century the netsuke, which until then had consisted of pieces of horn, wood, bamboo, or tooth, had developed into a popular art form.