/////Wood netsuke of Seiōbo with a basket of immortal peaches. Circa 1850.

Wood netsuke of Seiōbo with a basket of immortal peaches. Circa 1850.

Wood netsuke of Seiōbo with a basket of immortal peaches, seated on a bed of clouds.  Carver’s signature tablet lost.

Circa 1850.

Dimensions: 32.6 x 28.1 x 20.1 mm.

Queen Mother of the West is a calque of Xiwangmu in Chinese sources, Seiōbo in Japan. Peaches of Immortality (Chinese: 仙桃) are consumed by the immortals due to their mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who eat them.

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_Ephrussihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephrussi_familyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_de_Waal.

SKU: VO-0255 Categories: , ,

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