273 - MASATOSHI: CHINESE-STYLE FROG (CHUGOKU-FU KAERU)

MASATOSHI: CHINESE-STYLE FROG (CHUGOKU-FU KAERU) By Nakamura Tokisada (Masatoshi), signed Masatoshi 雅俊 Japan, Tokyo, June 1974 Published: Sagemonoya (2013) Masatoshi Netsuke, no. 33. Superbly carved from boxwood, lightly stained with yashadama, as a fantastical and powerfully modeled frog crouching low with all four limbs drawn tightly against its corpulent body, the feet transformed into bamboo stalks. The broad head is dominated by large protruding eyes, the right with an upward-looking pupil inlaid in black horn. The slightly open mouth reveals rows of minute teeth, while the skin is worked with extraordinary textural variety, the smaller pimples carved in ukibori and the larger warts in pronounced raised relief. Generously excavated asymmetrical himotoshi to the underside and signed MASATOSHI. LENGTH 5.7 cm Provenance: Sotheby’s, Japanese Works of Art, 11-12 November 1993, London, lot 390. From an American private collection, acquired from the above. Condition: Excellent condition. Masatoshi wrote of the present work: “The model I used was a Chinese bamboo okimono. I tried to capture the distinctive weirdness of the Chinese original. I carved the small pimples on the belly and back of the frog in ukibori, but I carved larger warts in raised relief.” The present netsuke is a particularly striking example of Masatoshi’s ability to translate an eccentric foreign prototype into a compact, highly sculptural composition while preserving its deliberately strange and humorous character.