A tortoiseshell netsuke of a horse and spider's web


Late 18th/early 19th centuryUnsigned. 5.4cm (2 1/8in) wide.
|鼈甲彫根付　蜘蛛の糸と走る馬　無銘　18世紀後期/19世紀前期Provenance: Eskenazi Ltd., 1968.Published:Katchen, N7, vol.2, p.455, no.K160.Of somewhat flattened form, carved in relief with a galloping horse beneath an openwork spider's web stretched over the branch of a flowering plum tree which continues on relief on the reverse.For a very similar example, see Davey, MTH, p.432, no.1294.The origins of this unusual motif can be traced to Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), a celebrated collection of essays written in the fourteenth century by the priest Kenko, who wrote approvingly of the restrained style of the uniforms formerly worn by guards at the Kamo horse races, consisting of an image of a horse covered by a garment painted with spiders' webs. This combination was taken up in dramatic works such as the Noh play Kanawa (The Iron Crown) and the Kyogen comedy Kumonusubito (The Spider Thief). In Kanawa, a woman despairs of her cheating husband, exclaiming that even if she hitched his horse to a spider's web, she could never trust such a faithless man (the recitation of a verse on the same theme forms the climax to Kumonusubito). This ambiguous sentiment later evolved into a more straightforward netsuke design, with the implication that any attempt to rein in human passion is akin to restraining a galloping horse with a flimsy spider's web.