Netsuke in Boston.(Netsuke: Fantasy and Reality in Japanese Miniature Sculpture, exhibition)(Brief Article)

It has long been said that like many accessories, netsuke was born of necessity. These ornaments were originally made to provide a way to secure tobacco cases, purses, or inro (medicine containers), which fashionable Japanese men suspended on silk cords at their waists starting about 1700. Netsuke were fashioned from exquisitely carved ivory, horn, amber, or boxwood and sometimes embellished with gold or silver. They represented deities, mythical creatures, imaginary beasts, and recognizable fauna imbued with symbolic meanings. Netsuke are usually two or three inches in height.

Joe Earle has recently written that netsuke might originally have been conceived as small sculptures that could even have been used as paperweights, but which were considered first and foremost as sculptural objects to be contemplated as works of art. To buttress his theory he asserts that many examples show little sign of wear, and the silk cord that passed through the hole drilled through a netsuke could just have easily been knotted around an obi without the need for a netsuke. Additionally, the hole is always drilled so as not to disfigure the carving, even at the cost of suspending the netsuke more awkwardly ...