| An
elegant sashi netsuke, smooth and highly polished, in the form of a dragonfly
with folded wings, carved from fine, close grained ivory, cream color with surface
patina, engraving with sumi in the veins of the wings, inlaid light horn for the
eyes, himotoshi on the insect’s thorax. A slender and graceful piece, the fragile
wings strengthened by doubling them thus reinforcing the seemingly thin blades
of ivory from the underside, where the artist has meticulously rendered the dragonfly’s
segments, which in nature number only ten. While the dragonfly’s four back legs
are folded, its front legs are seen stroking its mouth. Clearly the work of an
accomplished netsukeshi about whom we have no further information, as Kamasa's
career seems to have eluded the archives in our library.
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