The knife marks are not sanded away. They are the finish.
Ittōbori means carving with a single blade. The figure is cut in bold flat planes and the facets are left exactly as the knife left them — no rounding, no sanding, no attempt to hide the making.
The bare wood is then sealed with shell white, painted in mineral pigment, and finished with gold leaf, so a face that is almost angular carries colour as bright as a screen painting.
Soft wood, cut small — these are festival figures, not temple work.
Cut in flat planes with a single blade. Nothing is rounded off afterwards.
Mineral colour laid straight on the facets, leaving the cuts visible.
Gold leaf on the ground of the better pieces.
The subjects come from the festivals of Nara: dancers, court musicians, deer, figures from Noh.
It is a style that decides in advance not to be smooth, and everything else follows from that.
Ittōbori means one-knife carving, and the name is a promise about what you will be able to see. The facets left by the blade are not smoothed away — they are the finish. A figure is cut in a few decisive planes and then stopped.
Pieces are found one at a time, in Japan, and photographed before they are listed. Tell us what you are looking for, and we will write when something arrives that answers it.
We write when there is something to write about — some months twice, some months not at all.
Noted. We will write when something arrives.