Japanese netsuke are elaborately detailed figurines. Measuring around 3–5 centimeters in length, they have been described as “small universes in the palm of the hand” for their intricacy. Netsuke ...

Netsuke are those darling carved toggles that appear to hang as decorations from obi but actually have a very practical role in the traditional dress ensemble. Since traditional Japanese garments have ...

Netsuke are very small. Smaller than a matchbox, often as small as the joint of my little-finger, these Japanese ivory, bone and wooden carvings are hard explosions of exactitude. You roll them in ...

Inada Ichiro (Japanese, 1891-1979) was an important 20th century netsuke artist. For centuries, the Japanese have used miniature sculptures hung by cords from the sash of their traditional garments ...

Among the most engaging books I’ve read in the past decade or so is the ceramicist Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), an account of his family’s astonishing history. Until the rise of ...

In the hands of Japanese netsuke carvers like Ryushi Komada, something quite mundane becomes sublime. From a simple block of wood emerges a delicate and expressive face, the sense of movement in the ...

Which zodiac are you? Dr Ai Fukunaga, Curator of East Asian Collections at the Chester Beatty introduces a fascinating new exhibition at the much-loved Dublin museum. The twelve zodiac animals—rat, ox ...

Japanese carved figurines, called netsuke, weren’t just cool works of art — they served a practical purpose as wardrobe accessories. A well-dressed Japanese man prior to the twentieth century could ...

Netsuke are the diminutive works of art that dangled from cords attaching purses or other pouches to a kimono's obi sash before Western garb ousted traditional dress after the modernizing Meiji ...

In the hands of Japanese netsuke carvers like Ryushi Komada, something quite mundane becomes sublime. From a simple block of wood emerges a delicate and expressive face, the sense of movement in the ...