Seated karako netsuke - Unsigned
circa 1860
A seated karako, dressed in an infant’s apron tied at its waist and neck, holds up mask of Daikoku to its face. The inverted mask appears amusingly as a grimacing head, its true identity revealed only when the netsuke is turned upside down. Viewed from the top, a third image can be discerned, that of a the upper body of a bald man, his robes tied with an obi.
