Netsuke

Tobacco box with lid with netsuke and ojime. Decoration of grapevines with leaves in gold and silver; the bunches of grapes consist of mother of pearl inlay.

Illustrations

Netsuke in the form of a No mask.

A tobacco bag with a belt button (netsuke) and a partially opened fan depicting a mountain landscape, next to a stack of paper. Running horses are depicted on the tobacco bag; a parrot on the belt button. With two poems.

A medicine bag (inrô), bead (ojime) and girdle knot (netsuke) in the shape of a sitting goat. These attributes were worn on the belt. With four poems.

Depiction of four figures, perhaps a scene in two parts on two sides of the netsuke. Inscription on the bottom. Hole through the middle.

Porcelain Netsuke in the shape of a reclining animal, painted on the glaze in blue, red and black. The animal has a collar and the fur is shown by engraved lines. Arita.

Netsuke in the form of a lying animal

Fan print of samurai, holding an inro to which netsuke in the form of a human, looking sideways in the direction of the sedan chair; nighttime riverside in background.

Against the black background on one side a feather in ao red and gray; on the other side the Kamo River with storm-moved plants in gold. Signed in gold on the bottom "toshihide" with age and year and stamp.

Inro with bird, netsuke with blossoms, ojime

Girdle knot (netsuke) of wood in the form of a man standing bent over with a child on his back and an object in his hand.

Netsuke in the form of a Dutch man with child

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

Netsuke
In Japanese costume and decorative art, a small object carved in wood, ivory, bone, or horn, or wrought in metal, and pierced with holes for cords by which it is connected, for convenience, with the inro, the smoking pouch (tabako-ire), and similar objects carried in the girdle. It is now much used on purses sold in Europe and America.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

(n) netsuke
A small knob or button, of horn, wood, ivory, or other material, often elaborately carved or inlaid, lacquered, or decorated with enamel, used by the Japanese as a bob or toggle in connection with a cord for suspending a tobacco-pouch, inro, or similar article in the belt or girdle.

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary

(n) Netsuke
net′su-kā a small toggle or button, carved or inlaid, on Japanese pipe-cases, pouches, &c.

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary Jap

Usage in literature

Yet apart from his teaching he was as curious and adorable as a good Netsuke. "The New Machiavelli" by Herbert George Wells

The Tokio men carve netsukes from them. "Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880" by Various

Hence the evolution of the netsuke, now as famous in Europe as in Japan. "The Empire of the East" by H. B. Montgomery

Japanese Netsuke and Scandinavian bone carvings are other stimulating, if more remote, fields. "Pottery, for Artists Craftsmen & Teachers" by George J. Cox

But the netsuke may now be said to be a thing of the past. "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2" by Various