A JAPANESE FOX NETSUKE BY MASAKAZU OF NAGOYA

A JAPANESE NETSUKE OF KUZUNOHA BY MASAKAZU OF NAGOYA
EDO/MEIJI, 19TH CENTURY

The Fox Woman depicted seated on her haunches, protectively holding her child Abe no Seimei swaddled in a cloth and with a writing brush in her mouth, her hind legs and bushy tail folded beneath and forming the himotoshi, signed Masakazu on the tail; attached to a woven bamboo tonkotsu (tobacco box), the netsuke 3.5cm, the box 7.5cm.

Cf. N K Davey, Netsuke, a Comprehensive Study Based on the M. T. Hindson Collection, p.199, no.603. and F Meinertzhagen, The Meinertzhagen Card Index on Netsuke in the Archives of the British Museum, Part A, p.425 for similar examples.

This netsuke is a reference to the kabuki play titled Kuzunoha, based on the legend Shinoda no tsuma (The Shinoda Wife), the story of a fox woman. In the original legend, a white fox transforms into a woman and marries a man, but must return to the Shinoda forest once her true identity is discovered. A variation of the story follows the fortune-teller Abe no Yasuna, who saves a fox that later bears him a son. Before reverting to her animal form, the fox-mother writes a moving farewell poem to her child, gripping the brush in her mouth.