Michael Webb (1934-2009)

Cropton, Yorkshire, Circa 1980

A crab rests on a piece of driftwood, anchoring itself with its claws as it sweeps its pincers to its mouth to feed. The creature’s shell is carved in meticulous detail, the carapace densely covered with ukibori pimples.

Michael Webb was an English carver of netsuke. A former Director and auctioneer at Sotheby’s, he carved as a hobby until 1976, when he became disenchanted at the way the auction rooms were changing and left London for Yorkshire, where he honed his art as a netsuke carver under the mentoring eye of Luigi Bandini of Eskenazi Ltd. He specialized in British animals, insects, crustaceans and other sea life, always working in boxwood.

Michael Webb
Michael Webb
Michael Webb

Signed in ukibori within a sunken reserve: MW

Michael Webb
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