Irezumi Shunga Netsuke, Japanese Traditional Kinbaku Shibari Rope BDSM Play, Kneeling Bound Beauty with Peony Tattoo, Mammoth Tusk
Irezumi Shunga Netsuke, Japanese Traditional Kinbaku Shibari Rope BDSM Play, Kneeling Bound Beauty with Peony Tattoo, Mammoth Tusk
- Dispatch
- Prepared and sent from Tokyo within 7–14 days, often sooner, or as arranged
- Arrival
- United States · usually 4–7 days after dispatch, insured and tracked Check the Shipping Flowchart here
- Import
Duties and customs · View the estimate
A guide for this piece: about $807, based on the 10% US charge on the declared value of goods made in Japan.
The final figure is set by US Customs and depends on where the piece was made and the kind of object it is. Many antiques over a century old carry no ordinary duty; most jewellery and leather goods add a single-digit rate.
With EMS, any charge is collected by your postal service on delivery. For pieces of significant value we can often arrange duties prepaid before dispatch.
How the estimate is reached · Ask for a figure on this piece
- Character
- Resplendent 9.5 of 10 ·
- Replies
- Within one Tokyo business day · Ask the curator team
- Guarantee
- Authenticity guaranteed · How we grade
| Figure | cm | in |
|---|---|---|
| Width | 3.1 cm | 1.2 in |
| Height | 4.9 cm | 1.9 in |
| Depth | 3.2 cm | 1.3 in |
Every piece is measured by hand, in centimetres as Japan measures. Please allow 1–2 cm (about ½ inch) for the give of the material and the hand that held the tape.
Where each figure is taken · View the plate
Object, sculpture and ceramics
Condition report
Excellent
- Giftable
- Mint
- Excellent
- Very Good
- Good
- Honest Wear
- As Found
Rope, Flower and Skin
Two great underground arts of Japan, rope and tattoo, are folded into an object made to be held in the palm. The discipline of the carving is the opposite of the abandon it depicts, and that tension is what collectors of shunga have always prized.
Best for: Collectors of shunga, irezumi art and the finest contemporary netsuke
Condition notes
No conspicuous marks recorded. Staining and ink engraving are bright, and the polish is even.
Grades, ratings and commentary are given to the best of our ability, knowledge and experience, and condition remains partly a matter of personal perception. What we stand behind without qualification is authenticity, truthful description and provenance, to the best of our knowledge. How we grade
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All sales are final. Please read our refund policy before purchase.
Considered offers only. The Desk replies personally to figures made in good faith; those set far below the asking price receive no reply.
Examined in Tokyo, one price, insured to your door. How buying from Japonista works · Join the Circle, free
The summit of this cabinet: a kneeling beauty bound in fine rope, her whole body worked as a canvas of tattooed peonies, carved in the round at a height of under five centimetres.
This piece belongs to the private room of the house and is shown to adults only.
The Piece
She kneels upright with both arms folded behind her head, the pose of a figure offered to the gaze, while a cord no thicker than a thread crosses the torso in the ordered diamonds of kinbaku, the Japanese art of decorative rope. The carver has cut every strand in relief and then engraved the skin beneath it, so that rope and tattoo read as two separate layers on a surface smaller than a thumb.
The tattoo is the marvel. Orange peonies, green leaves and blue wave bands run from shoulder to ankle in stained and ink-filled engraving, front and back, with the hair dressed in grey-black strands and the face left in the pale, luminous tone of the tusk. Turned on its side the figure shows a red seal signature at the knee and continues its pattern across every hidden surface.
Iconography and Meaning
Kinbaku grew from hojojutsu, the Edo constable's rope craft, into a theatre of beauty and restraint, and it met irezumi, the full-body tattoo of firemen and gamblers, in the prints of Yoshitoshi and later in the paintings of Ito Seiu. The peony is the king of flowers and the classic companion of courage in tattoo iconography. Seen together they make this one of the most Japanese of all erotic images: severity and ornament in a single body.
Netsuke were the first Japanese objects that the collectors of nineteenth-century Paris and London fell in love with: the Goncourt brothers, Siegfried Bing and the circle around the Impressionists kept them in their pockets and wrote of them as sculpture complete in miniature. That first wave of Japonisme has never really ended, and a carving of this quality shows why.
Details
- Type: Katabori netsuke, carved in the round
- Subject: Bound kneeling beauty with full-body tattoo
- Material: Woolly mammoth tusk
- Technique: Hand carving, staining and ink engraving
- Colour: Ivory white with orange, green, blue and black
- Length: 31 mm (1.2 in)
- Width: 32 mm (1.3 in)
- Height: 49 mm (1.9 in)
- Period: Contemporary, in the classical tradition
- Made in: Japan
Measured by hand; please allow a gentle margin of about 1 to 2 mm.
Condition
- No conspicuous marks, chips or repairs are noted.
- Staining and ink engraving are bright, and the polish is even.
- Every photograph is part of the description.
Condition grade A (excellent) on the Japanese scale; see Japanese condition ranks, explained.
Authenticity & Care
Carved by hand in Japan from the tusk of the woolly mammoth, an extinct species whose fossil tusk is not elephant ivory and is not listed under CITES. It is a contemporary work in the classical tradition, examined and photographed in Japan before dispatch. Rules on mammoth tusk differ between countries and, in the United States, between states; please confirm that it may be received at your address before you buy. Keep away from direct sun, dry heat and sudden changes of humidity, and handle with clean dry hands.
Delivery from Japan
Wrapped by hand in Japan in soft tissue and a rigid case, and shipped insured and tracked by EMS or an equivalent express service. Import duties and taxes, where applicable, are payable on arrival. Every sale is final; please ask anything you wish to know before you buy, and see our published policy.
Further reading: Read our guide Netsuke, Inro and Maki-e: Collecting Japan's Miniature Masterpieces and look up netsuke in the Japonista Lexicon.
Considered offers are welcome through Send an Offer, and each one is reviewed personally. Further pieces of the kind are kept in Shunga and Hidden Arts and in the wider room of Netsuke, Sagemono and Inro.
Concierge
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