By Tachikawa Takusai (1817-1887), signed Takusai 啄齋
Japan, Suwa, Shinano Province, mid to late 19th century

Published: Sydney L. Moss Ltd. (2006) More Things in Heaven and Earth, p. 92, no. 39.

Finely carved as a gleefully smiling mermaid clutching her tail and pulling it toward herself, her other hand holding a sacred tama (jewel), her facial features expressively carved, her arms distinguished with developed muscles, her lower body well detailed and neatly incised with scales and fins, her long hair flowing elegantly down her back in finely incised strands forming the ‘natural’ himotoshi. Signed within a smooth oval reserve TAKUSAI.

LENGTH 3.8 cm

Condition: Very good condition with minor expected wear. Tiny chip to the edge of the tail fin and a tiny chip to the fin underneath.
Provenance: Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, 2006. A noted private collection, USA, acquired from the above.

The present netsuke is carved from shitan (purple sandalwood), which is riddled throughout with the traces of unusually small woodworm. Paul Moss concluded in More Things in Heaven and Earth that the wormholes were already in the material when Takusai chose it, as evidenced by the grooves lying on the surface of the wood. Other netsuke by Takusai illustrated in Lazarnick, George (1981) Netsuke & Inro Artists, and How to Read Their Signatures, vol. II, p. 1055-1056, show evidence of the same woodworm as the present netsuke.

Tachikawa was proposed by George Lazarnick as a group of carvers with the same family name (which had been previously read as single names including most often Ryusen and less often Tatsukawa, Tatsugawa, and seldom Tachikawa). The selection of characters used in the names, the very style of rendering of these characters and the reserves in which they are often placed, the invariable use of wood, as well as the information recorded about them all point to an interrelationship among them. See Lazarnick, George (1981) Netsuke & Inro Artists, and How to Read Their Signatures, vol. II, p. 1053.

Auction comparison:
Compare a closely related wood netsuke by Tachikawa Takusai depicting the same subject, illustrated in Meinertzhagen, Frederick / Lazarnick, George (1986) MCI, Part B, p. 833, where Meinertzhagen described it as “a little gem of art”, and in Lazarnick, George (1981) Netsuke & Inro Artists, and How to Read Their Signatures, vol. II, p. 1055, at Bonhams, 25 March 2010, New York, lot 2051 (sold for 4,575 USD).