YOZEI: A FINE TSUISHU (RED LACQUER) NETSUKE OF A NOH MASK, KO-OMOTE

YOZEI: A FINE TSUISHU (RED LACQUER) NETSUKE OF A NOH MASK, KO-OMOTE
By Yozei, signed Yozei 楊成 zo 造
Japan, late 19th to early 20th century
The wood ground finely carved and lacquered in black and red to depict the face of a young woman with almond-shaped eyes and slender lips forming a cheerful smile, the reverse with a central himotoshi bar, the wood ground to the reverse with the signature YOZEI zo.
HEIGHT 5 cm
Condition: Good condition with some wear and little rubbing to lacquer.
Provenance:
European collection P. Jacquesson, acquired from Robert Fleischel on 10 September 2007.
With a wood storage box with hakogaki inscription reading, 'Men-netsuke, Yozei zo' (A mask netsuke, made by Yozei) with a red seal.
Ko-omote
(literally, “little mask”) conveys the beauty of a girl not yet twenty. A skilled actor can imbue an impassive expression with subtle emotion according to his movements; this is the prototype for more than twenty other masks for female roles, each varying subtly from the innocence of this mask to convey sensuous, passionate, demented, or supernatural characteristics.
Tsuishu Yozei
was the hereditary name given to a famous family of lacquerers, which dated back to the mid-fourteenth century and which specialized in tsuishu in the style of Chinese carved lacquers. Jahss writes that their tsuishu “far surpasses the Chinese work in richness and color, beauty, skill of carving and variation of design”. Judging from the signature and hakogaki inscription, the present netsuke was likely carved by Tsuishu Yozei (1880-1952), who succeeded as Yozei in 1896. His given name was Toyogoro and he studied carving under Ishikawa Komei and Japanese-style painting under Satake Eiko. He was a frequent exhibitor and judge for the Teiten, Bunten, and Nitten exhibitions, and was a member of the prestigious Nihon Gijutsuin (Japan Art Academy) in Tokyo. See Earle, Joe [ed.] (1995) The Index of Inro Artists, p. 331-332.
Literature comparison:
Compare a ko-omote mask dated to the 18th century in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1993.341.1.