Elaborate Late-Edo and Meiji Netsuke With a Focus on the Soko Morita School

Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum

This event has ended.

Netsuke are small ornaments that hung from kimonos and hand-held objects such as satchels, tobacco pouches, medicine cases. Paintings depicting the customs of the early-Edo era show people wearing round netsuke made of ivory and bamboo. Wood as well as ivory netsuke become popular in the mid-Edo era, followed by intricate metal netsuke late in the period that complemented gold-patterned European leather and gorgeous gold and silver lacquer medicine cases. Netsuke were ideally not too large and had no protruding corners so they would not damage their owner’s kimonos or obi belts, but with the spread of western fashions in the Meiji era they moved away from practicality and towards detailed realism, transforming completely into objects d’art meant for decoration. The artist Soko Morita distinguished himself within this movement in netsuke-making. This exhibition introduces the exquisite skill of highly elaborate and realistic netsuke from the late-Edo and Meiji eras, with a focus on the works of Soko Morita and his school.

[Related Event]
Gallery Talk
Speaker: Masayuki Murata (Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum Director)
Date: Jun. 1 (Sat) 14:00–15:00
Free with cost of admission
Please see the official website for details.