Netsuke Masks

Netsuke are small toggles or buckles carved from wood or ivory. The Japanese in the seventeenth century used them to fasten pouches to their kimono belt, since kimonos had no pockets. This lavishly illustrated book takes the reader on an exciting tour of one type of netsuke—those carved to look like the masks used by stage actors.

Raymond Bushell, attorney, collector, and netsuke authority, is known to netsuke collectors for his adaptation into English of The Netsuke Handbook of Ueda Reikichi, an important work on the subject. He is the author of The Wonderful World of Netsuke, An Introduction to Netsuke, Netsuke Familiar and Unfamiliar, The Inro Handbook, The Art of Netsuke Carving, and Collectors' Netsuke. He is also a frequent contributor of articles to Arts of Asia, The Journal of International Netsuke Collectors, and The Netsuke Kenkyukai Study Journal. He arrived in Japan with the American occupation forces in 1945 and lived there until 1990 practicing law, collecting, and studying netsuke, inro, and sword furnishings.