

Lot 73*,Y
An ivory netsuke of a fox-priest Late 18th/early 19th century
8 November 2011, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £55,250 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistAn ivory netsuke of a fox-priest
Late 18th/early 19th century
Transforming to human form, standing, dressed as a priest, looking down to the right, its human hands resting on a bamboo cane and its human feet probably carved separately, the slightly-worn ivory lightly stained and bearing a good patina, unsigned. 10.2cm (4in).
Transforming to human form, standing, dressed as a priest, looking down to the right, its human hands resting on a bamboo cane and its human feet probably carved separately, the slightly-worn ivory lightly stained and bearing a good patina, unsigned. 10.2cm (4in).
Footnotes
象牙彫差根付 僧(擬人化狐) 無銘 18世紀後期/19世紀前期
Provenance: Madelyn Hickmott collection.
Marcel Dawson collection.
Published: Japanese Netsuke, Ojime and Inro from the Dawson collection, Eskenazi Ltd., London 1997, no.17.
Rosemary Bandini, ibid., p.32, no.47.
For a very similar example, probably by the same hand, see Neil K. Davey, Netsuke, p.318, no.972.
The fox-priest Hakuzozo is a popular motif in Japanese mythology and forms the subject of the Kyogen play Tsurigitsune.