3-21 (original number), 4-119 (original number), and 5-86 (original number)
Accession number:
Acc.2384
Description:
Netsuke: standing, robed figure of man with incense box in left hand. Right hand raised. Figure wearing court dress.
Donor:
Estate of Geraldine C. and Kernan Robson
Collection place:
Japan
Production place:
Japan
Culture or time period:
Japanese
Collector:
Geraldine C. Robson
Collection date:
before 1940
Materials:
Ivory (material)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
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 4.9 centimeters
Comment:
Made by men. Per Accession file: Netsuke of a man in kimono, with shaven head, holding an incense box. Chajin (Cha no yu, tea ritual). Established by Shogun Yoshimasa, aided by priests of Zen, most intellectual, cultured, sophisticated, and brilliant men [sic?]. The ritual consists in the solemn and prescribed use of about twenty utensils for tea, in a precise and formal succession. These articles, especially, the incense burner became of almost inestimable value. One jar (the Koga) four inches high went for $400,000. The rules for etiquette for the guest and host were also solemn and ordained to the point of fanaticism. The tea-jar incense holder was particularly important, to mitigate the oder from the burning charcoal, carried in the hibachi. See "Cha no yu" in Joly.
Loans:
S1968-1969 #4: University of California, Berkeley (July 2, 1968–May 3, 1973)