An excellent ivory, cream to dark cream color, exhibiting a mature command of the medium, replete with detail and undercutting; forceful, lifelike and expressive, from the hand of the famous netsukeshi, Chogetsu. Depicting Urashima riding the minogame, the longevity turtle whose long tail rises up behind it like a great flame, represented in mid stride looking back at the melancholy Ushiwara. Textures are defined; the turtle’s skin and shell distinctly marked in contrast to the glossy surfaces burnished by time.

One day the young boy Urashima rescues a turtle from being tormented by children and is later visited by the turtle, who thanks him for his kindness and as a reward offers to take him for a ride on his back to the underwater paradise of Ryugu, the palace of the Dragon King. Excited, the boy hops on and is transported to that wondrous place. His stay in Ryugu is very pleasurable, but after a short while he becomes homesick and wants to see his parents again. The queen of Ryugu agrees to let him go and gives him a box to take back with him, telling him he must not open it. Upon returning home Urashima finds everything changed and unfamiliar. Unable to find his parents or anyone who remembers him or them, he walks sadly back to the shore. Despondent, he opens the box and white smoke pours out, instantly transforming Urashima into an old man in tattered clothes who is now hundreds of years old. What had seemed only a few heedless days in paradise was actually lifetimes.