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A kimono has no pockets. That is the entire reason this exists.
Would you like one like this? ↓A kimono has no pockets. Anything a man carried — tobacco, his seal, medicine in a stacked lacquer inrō — hung from a cord that was passed up behind his sash, and the netsuke sat on TOP of the sash as the toggle that stopped the whole thing sliding back down. It is the anchor, not the pendant: the carving rides at the waist, in view, and the pouch hangs below it.
So it is a working object, and the work sets three hard rules. It has to be small enough to close a hand around. It has to be smooth everywhere, with nothing that could catch a thread of silk. And it has to be finished on every face including the underside — the side that only the owner ever sees, sitting alone. The two cord holes, the himotoshi, must be cut where they will let the piece hang the right way up.
A maid hid two hundred and sixty-four of these in her mattress. They're netsuke. A kimono has no pockets, so a man hung his tobacco and his seal from his sash, and a tiny carving like this held them in place. In 1899 a rich family in Vienna, the Ephrussi, got the whole collection as a wedding present. Their children played with them on the dressing-room floor. But in 1938 the Nazis took Vienna. Officers listed everything in the palace, the paintings, the silver, the books, and boxed it up for Berlin. So the family's maid, Anna, did something small. The family story goes that every time she passed the cabinet, she slipped a few into her apron pocket. Then she hid them in her mattress, all through the war. In 1945 the eldest daughter came home to an empty house. Anna gave her back every single one. Small enough to hide. Good enough to hand down. If you'd like one of your own, Maison Homura will go and look for it. They were made for clothes with no pockets. They were saved by one.
On the shelf now, from other workshops
Not this story's piece: new work from Japan's workshops that can be ordered today.
Kutani Ryusen Vasegold leaf pine crane flower vessel$189
Hakata Ningyo Monkey FigurineQueen Mother of the West peach$179
Oga Peninsula Namahage Wall HangingJapanese Red Oni Mask$109
Seibo Kitamura Fighting Spirit Bronze Bull SculptureYokozuna Ushi Cast Metal$465Pieces like this come and go, and most of what the house finds never goes online.
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A block of boxwood is chosen and the grain read before a cut is made.
The mass is cut away with a few decisive strokes. Misjudge here and the day is over.
Detail is cut with chisels a millimetre wide.
Two holes are cut in the underside for the cord, set so the piece sits upright on the sash instead of tipping over.
Polished and oiled. The rest of the shine comes from being carried for fifty years.
Inside those rules a carver could do anything, and did. Boxwood, ivory, stag antler. A quail. A rat on a chestnut. A wave breaking over itself. A puppy asleep with its nose in its own flank. Hotei climbing out of his own sack. Katabori is the figure carved in the round; manjū is the flat bun; ryūsa is the one pierced right through.
Kyoto had the first great school — when people say netsuke they are usually still picturing Tomotada's oxen. Osaka and Edo followed. The good carvers signed underneath, where nobody was looking.
Then Japan put on Western clothes, the sash went, and by the Meiji period netsuke were being carved for foreign collectors rather than for men who needed one. That is exactly when they got bigger, busier and less good. The collectors bought them anyway.
A dorei is not a decoration that happens to rattle. It is a bell — unglazed earthenware, fired with a pellet loose inside, with a sound hole cut at the foot. The note is dry and short, nothing like metal.
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