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A
tall and bulky early ivory netsuke of Gama sennin
standing in his loose, open-fronted robe with mugwort leaf
collar. His bearded yet ageless face, its eye pupils inlaid
in dark reddish horn, bears a beatific, even idiotically
happy expression, and he carries two three-legged toads.
One of them nestles at his breast like a baby, or for that
matter like a Dutchman’s puppy; the other sits among
his long tresses, balanced on his shoulder on a strange
forked twig arrangement, as if ready to be catapulted.
Unsigned.
Circa
1700
Height:
5 5/32 in.; 13.1 cm.
Ex collections: W.L.
Behrens, no. 3455; Virginia and Ray Atchley, Los Angeles.
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