179 - JIKAN GANBUN: A PEWTER-ENRICHED LACQUERED WOOD NETSUKE OF A SNAIL EMERGING FROM ITS SHELL

JIKAN GANBUN: A PEWTER-ENRICHED LACQUERED WOOD NETSUKE OF A SNAIL EMERGING FROM ITS SHELL By Jikan Ganbun, signed Jikan Ganbun 自侃 眼文 Japan, 19 th century, Edo period (1615-1868) Published: International Netsuke Collector’s Society (INCS), vol. 3, no. 3, p. 15, lot 118. Finely carved in the Nagoya manner as a large snail emerging from its tightly coiled shell, its fleshy body curling sinuously around the underside and extending forward beneath the shell, the head raised with two long tentacles reaching ahead. The spiraling shell is superbly worked with dense radiating grooves, contrasting strikingly with the rough, granular texture of the body, subsequently enriched by Jikan Ganbun with irregular pewter inlay evoking patches of lichen and lending the surface a remarkably encrusted, almost otherworldly appearance. Natural himotoshi and signed in an inset ebony cartouche JIKAN GANBUN. LENGTH 4.3 cm Provenance: Sotheby’s, 30 June 1975, London, lot 118. Thereafter in a a French private collection. Condition: Good condition with minor wear. The oxidized pewter with irregularities and old losses, many of which appear intentional and contribute to the deliberately weathered surface. Jikan Ganbun (active 19th century) was an accomplished netsuke artist and metalworker associated with Kyoto and Edo, celebrated above all for his extraordinarily naturalistic metal embellishments. He frequently worked in pewter, copper, silver, and other metals, most famously creating minute ants, snails, insects, and patches of lichen, and is also known to have added such details to carvings by other artists. The present netsuke is a particularly striking example of this practice: an accomplished Nagoya-school snail, carved in the style of Tadayoshi, has been transformed by Ganbun’s later intervention, the rough oxidized pewter of the animal’s body producing a vivid contrast with the crisply carved wooden shell. Auction comparison: Compare a related bamboo and ebony wood netsuke of mushrooms with a snail and ants by the same artist, signed Jikan Ganbun, dated late 19 th century, 4.2 cm long, at Bonhams, The Robert S. Huthart Collection of Iwami Netsuke, 15 May 2019, London, lot 135 (sold for GBP 4,437 or approx. EUR 7,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing).