Tokoku Jurojin

This is a small, very precise netsuke carving of Jurōjin, one of the Seven Lucky Gods imported to Japan from China. The carver Suzuki Tokoku was born in 1846 and lived until around 1931. This means that he was active at the very end of the netsuke carving tradition. He started his career in the 1870s in Tokyo, where he was largely influenced by an important carver, Ozaki Kokusai. Kokusai himself was the leader of a group of carvers who had a particular liking for stag antler. They carved with great wit and with quite a lot of literary allusions in their work. Tokoku himself began to carve under that influence, and his first pieces were likely less figural and more what are called manjū. Manjū is a Japanese rice cake, and manjū netsuke take the form of an oval or circular bun. They would have been carved in a variety of materials, something which is very typical of the Meiji period between 1868 and 1912 and later. Jugyoku and Tokoku would have certainly carved various things such as the famous arms bowl in wood, which contains little objects in other materials like jade, lacquer, metal, etc. Tokoku was a very able artist and was skilled at working in more than one material, which he very much enjoyed doing.

In the case of this lucky god, Jurōjin, he carved a very large gourd behind him, which can be seen in the 3D version. As it revolves, the gourd itself appears almost as large as the god himself and would have contained quite a lot of sake. It is held by a long red tasseled cord, which is in fact lacquer, one of the inlaid elements that he liked. The lacquered cord is wrapped round the middle of the gourd, which has a tiny ivory stopper. The figural subject matter that Tokoku liked was largely of these lucky gods and the Buddhist patriarch Daruma. He likely carved netsuke that were never going to be used since by the time he was working, and certainly by the middle of his career, most Japanese had given up the kimono altogether.