A JAPANESE BOXWOOD NETSUKE OF GAMA SENNIN BY NAITO TOYOMASA (1773-1856)

A JAPANESE BOXWOOD NETSUKE OF GAMA SENNIN BY NAITO TOYOMASA (1773-1856)
EDO PERIOD, 18TH/19TH CENTURY

Finely carved and stained, the Immortal is depicted seated with one knee raised, his large pet toad clambering upon his back; typically modelled with a coat of mugwort leaves, and long trailing hair and beard; both with their eyes inlaid in horn; signed Toyomasa underneath, 5.6cm.

Provenance: from the Mark and Elizabeth Harding Collection, South Africa; previously in the Raymond and Frances Bushell Collection. Acquired from Raymond Bushell, with a certificate dated 29th March 1971 where he confirms this is the piece published in his book 'The Wonderful World of Netsuke', p.54, pl.65. Bushell mentions in the book that he acquired it from Soichi Kurono of Nagoya. For another similar model in the Bushell Collection, see The Raymond and Frances Bushell Collection of Netsuke, a Legacy at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, no.53.

Also with a letter from Barry Davies attesting that the netsuke was borrowed for the exhibition ‘Netsuke Classics’, 1990. Illustrated and discussed in Barry Davies Oriental Art, Netsuke Classics, no.57. The author comments that 'Naito Toyomasa carved a number of variations of Gama Sennin with his toad. The piece exhibited here is certainly one of the best that I have handled personally'.

Cf. F Meinertzhagen, The Meinertzhagen Card Index on Netsuke in the Archives of the British Museum, Part B, p.953 for similar netsuke of Gama Sennin by Toyomasa, one in the W L Behrens collection. See the International Netsuke Collectors' Society, 1980, 7/4, p.15 where other Gama Sennin netsuke by Toyomasa are discussed.