Netsuke: stylized orange decorated with cloud pattern. Inside orange, two men seated at a table; playing Go. According to the donor's catalog: "Netsuke in old ivory of what is intended for an orange—leaving the perceptions somewhat vague about it—by reason of the cloud pattern with which the orange is richly embroidered—the cloud pattern is [untranscribable] the symbol of mysticism. This same orange has an 'seif - de - bouey' through which one glimpses two old men seated before a go-ban table with the black and white "ishi" plainly visible. Once in a grove there grew an orange tree. Its fruit was imposing particularly turo—which the master left, on the tree where they hung, for a long time in monumental bloom remaining fresh with no sign of decay. One day, the master made a circular cut, into the orange of our new netsuke and—outwalked two sages who immediately began an alisorting game of go - at a nearby table. After a awhile, one of the orange men drew [untranscribable] his robe, root shaped like a dragon—in which the two mounted—and ascended to an overhanging cloud. In netsuke's they are represented at their go ban table neither or without the orange.
Donor:
Estate of Geraldine C. and Kernan Robson
Collection place:
Japan
Culture or time period:
Japanese
Collector:
Geraldine C. Robson
Collection date:
before 1940
Materials:
Ivory (material)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Dragons and Netsukes
Function:
2.2 Personal Adornments and Accoutrements
Accession date:
1968
Context of use:
Toggle to be attached to the end of a cord and thrust through the sash of a kimono for the support of a purse, pouch or lacquer box.
Department:
Asia (except western Russia)
Dimensions:
height 3.8 centimeters
Comment:
donor base/stand marked with catalog number LW 2015-10-29
Loans:
S1968-1969 #4: University of California, Berkeley (July 2, 1968–May 3, 1973)