Tetsugen Kyusai (1879-1938)

A wood model of a mokugyo, the handle formed by two confronting open-jawed dragons. A loose ball rolls between the two mouths. Two stylised ‘doors’, carved to represent a dragon’s scaled skin, open to reveal the contents of body of the gong – a string of three miniature Daruma dolls and twelve tiny mokugyo.

Signed: Tetsugen
Width: 3.9cm

Bushell, in Collectors’ Netsuke (p.141) notes that the carver had a partiality for mokugyo and that his skills covered ‘micro-netsuke’. The characters used for his signature were adopted when he was 49 years old (1928).

Provenance:
Anne Hall Grundy collection