작품 상세

NICK LAMB: SANSUKUMI By Nick Lamb (b. 1948), signed with the artist's initials NL United Kingdom, c. 1990 Finely carved from pale wood, the dynamic composition depicting a frog and snail seated on a long banana leaf, as a large snake with amber eyes and dark-horn pupils raises its head from beneath the leaf, eyeing its prey. The naturalistic carving attractively stained and detailed with simulated tears and insect holes. Natural himotoshi and signed to the underside on an 18K gold plaque NL. LENGTH 12 cm Condition: Very good condition. One tiny nick to the edge near the snail. Nick Lamb (b. 1948) is one of only a few non-Japanese netsuke carvers. Over the past three decades, he has built a reputation as being among the finest living practitioners of the art form and is known for his meticulous, graceful carvings, typically of animals. His work was exhibited in several museums, such as the British Museum, and became part of many important private and public collections, including that of the Imperial Family of Japan, the Robin Lehman Collection, the Robert O. Kinsey Collection, and the Tokyo National Museum. Strongly influenced by the Iwami School of netsuke carvers, Nick Lamb carved scenes of the natural world. These natural pieces were intended to be representational, giving off a lively appearance with dynamic motion. He once said, “There must be movement, tension, emotion…The natural world has captivated me ever since I was a very young boy. I’ve always been fascinated by the shapes and intricacies of creatures, plant materials, shells, even the texture of objects as common as tree bark.” The combination of snake, frog, and snail (or slug) constitutes the sansukumi motif. Sansukumi translates to ‘the three who are afraid of one another’. The three animals are in a state of mutually assured destruction: the snake will consume the frog, however the frog has already eaten a poisonous snail, so the snake must perish as well. This motif is connected to sansukumi-ken, a category of Japanese hand games played by using three hand gestures. The oldest sansukumi-ken game is mushi-ken, a game originally from China. In mushi-ken, the ‘frog’ represented by the thumb wins against the ‘slug’ represented by the pinkie finger, which, in turn defeats the ‘snake’ represented by the index finger, which wins against the ‘frog’. Although this game was imported from China, the Japanese version differs in the animals represented. In adopting the game, the original Chinese characters for centipede or millipede were apparently confused with the characters for the ‘slug’. The centipede was chosen because of the Chinese belief that the centipede was capable of killing a snake by climbing and entering its head. One of the few surviving sansukumi-ken games is jan-ken, which was brought to the West in the 20th century as rock paper scissors. Auction comparison: Compare a related wood netsuke by the same artist, bearing a similar stain, at Zacke, Fine Netsuke & Sagemono, 28 April 2023, Vienna, lot 313 (sold for EUR 5,850).