Stag antler netsuke of a recumbent ox.

Signed: Tomomasa [友政].

Circa 1800.

Dimensions: 56.1 x 20.7 x 36.8 mm

Just speculation: There was a master in Kyoto named Tomotada who made netsuke with a recumbent ox motif. Our Tomomasa may be an epigone of a later date. Some even attribute the master to Meiji period.

Provenance: Charles Ephrussi (1849-1905) acquired in the 1870s; a wedding gift in 1898 to his cousin Ritter Viktor von Ephrussi (1860-1945) and Baroness Emilie (Emmy) Schey von Koromla (1879-1938); retrieved post-war by their daughter Elizabeth de Waal (1899-1991); given by her to her brother Ignaz (Iggie) Ephrussi (1906-1994), Tokyo; bequeathed by him to his great-nephew Edmund de Waal (born 1964), London, author of “The Hare with Amber Eyes: a hidden inheritance”. London / New York: Chatto & Windus / Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

ISBN 978-0099539551.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ephrussi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephrussi_family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_de_Waal.