A wood netsuke by Mitsuhiro

Signed Mitsuhiro (Ohara), 1810-1875
Height: 2 in. (5.2 cm.)

A very good wood netsuke of a snail curiously looking into a broken sake bottle engraved with an image of Hotei, the snail and bottle stained with different colors to differentiate them from one another; signed on a rectangular ivory tablet "Mitsuhiro".

For a similar ivory example depicting Hotei carved on a sake bottle, see Lisa A. Edwards and Margie M. Krebs, "Netsuke, The Collection of the Peabody Museum of Salem" (Peabody Museum of Salem, 1980), p. 20.

Provenance: Jack Schmidt

Ref. 1017341

SOLD