A bone netsuke of a group of four skulls. Late 19th century
On top of two large skulls and one smaller one sits a fourth skull, all of them realistically rendered with large eye sockets, the jaws with an upper row of teeth and suture lines. Signed Seisai?
Height 2.9 cm; width 4.1 cm
In Japanese art the numeral four respectively the representation of four objects is avoided since the word for "four"(= shi) also means death. In this case the representation of four skulls is congruent with the meaning of shi.
Provenienz
Privatsammlung, Düsseldorf