18TH AND 19TH CENTURY

细节

Three wood netsuke
18th and 19th Century
Carved as a tanuki, its body shaped as a tea-kettle, signed Tadakuni in ittobori; a boy with a large physalis fruit on his lap, the fruit in coral; a sennin holding a minogame in his hands, signed Kojitsu
1¼in. (3.1cm.), 1¼in. (2.9cm.) and 1 3/8in. (3.6cm.) high respectively (3)

拍品专文

A tanuki taking the form of a kettle is connected with the popular legend of Bambaku Chagama, miraculous tea-kettle. The priest Morinji realized his kettle assumed the forms of a kettle and a badger. He sold it to a tinker who after having toured with it and made a fortune, returned it to the Temple.

Badgers like foxes, are thought to have magical powers which enable them to assume forms other than their own. Their actions are thought to be of a practical joke nature rather than malicious.