224 pages, jacketed hardback, 293 x 218 mm, 318 colour illustrations
PRICE: £85.00
ISBN: 978 962 7502 18 0
Meetings With Remarkable Netsuke is the third in a trilogy of netsuke publications, aimed to nudge levels of appreciation to deeper, more thoughtful planes. It is the successor, rounding off with a triumphant flourish of works of consistently superlative quality, to Japanese Netsuke: Serious Art and Zodiac Beasts and Distant Cousins.
The catalogue focuses around a few clusters of the varied works of pivotal artists: Masanao of Kyoto, Hasgawa Ikko, Toyomasa, Kaigyokusai Masatsugu and Sosui, with only slightly less equipped in-depth surveys of the works of Tomotada, Minko, Tomokazu, Otoma, Gambun, Kokusai and Tokoku. Each of these groups is a selection, rich in variety, from the output range of some of the finest and most intriguing of old netsukeshi, which would even in isolation be considered unusually thorough and worthwhile.
This exhibition and catalogue celebrates the most gifted, inventive and eccentric amateurs of the 18th and early 19th centuries with a selection of drawings, engravings and portraits gathered from Soane's collection and other museums, archives and private houses around the country. More