Japanese Naturalistically Carved Boxwood Model of a Lotus Fruit
A Fine Japanese Naturalistically Carved Boxwood Model of a Lotus Fruit Containing Seven Horn Loose Seeds the Bent Stalk inlaid with minute Horn Spots forming the Himotoshi
Early 19th Century
Size: 4cm high, 3.5cm dia. - 1½ ins high, 1¼ ins dia.
Early 19th Century
Size: 4cm high, 3.5cm dia. - 1½ ins high, 1¼ ins dia.
In 1889 Rudyard Kipling wrote a letter describing his travels in Japan with his friend ‘The Professor’. They enter an antique shop and he becomes enthralled with the diminutive netsuke and their numerous subjects and forms.... ‘The Englishman is a wonderful animal. He buys a dozen of these things and puts them on top of an overcrowded cabinet, where they show like blobs of ivory, and forgets them in a week. The Japanese hides them in a beautiful brocaded bag or a quiet lacquer box till three congenial friends come to tea. Then he takes them out slowly, and they are looked over with appreciation amid quiet chuckles to the deliberative clink of cups and put back until the mood for introspection returns. That is the way to enjoy what we call curios. Every man is a collector in Japan, but you shall find no crowds of ‘things’ outside of the best shops’.
Japanese Naturalistically Carved Boxwood Model of a Lotus Fruit
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