Archer

A stout hinoki (cypress) wood netsuke of an archer. Slightly stooped over, the archer is drawing his bow, readying himself to raise the weapon for aim. The arrow head is the Karimata variety, used for the cutting of rope ties and the like.

The material and the application of gesso and pigment naturally results in questioning wether this example could be from the hand of the master, Yoshimura Shuzan. My friend Ed Mcniff who included this netsuke in the INS auction report (Volume 23 No 4 Winter 2003) appeared to give the work a thumbs up, though caveated his assessment, quite correctly that Shuzan was imitated in his own lifetime and beyond. My personal feelings are similar to Ed's that this example has hallmarks that would point to the work certainly being in the right timeframe of the master Shuzan. That generally is the first hurdle to overcome in the assessment; does the work demonstrate age indicators that suggest it could be close to 250 years old (Shuzan died in circa 1776). I believe it does. In addition, my experience has guided me to a part-conclusion on Shuzan-netsuke that the imitations of the master were by individuals, with access to the illustrations from the SK 1781. In other words, these imitators likely did not engineer a new design, they copied the illustrations rather than an actual example of Shuzan's work. In this sense, an outlier design has more chance of being an original. This is not an absolute, merely common sense applied to the 'realities on the ground' so to speak. Lastly, Shuzan was no doubt a marvellous sculptor, though he was again more likely a superior painter in comparison to imitators, after all, painting was his day job.

Our archer, on balance, passes these 'tests' of; age, originality of design, the canvas, i.e., the body finely sculpted and the application of primer and colour to that body being of superior class.

The archer potentially hits the Shuzan mark.

Ex Alexander Acevedo collection.

8cm High

11,000.00 €