The Japanese Part of This Collection

Introduction by Neil K. Davey, Senior Director Japanese Department, Sotheby's London

THE TRUDY AND JOHN NEVILLE COHEN COLLECTION

OF JAPANESE ART

by

Neil K. Davey

The collection of Japanese miniature art illustrated and described on this website is highly interesting on several fronts.

John Cohen and his wife Trudy are second generation collectors. John's father George A. Cohen formed the original collection of netsuke and inro, starting in the 1940s and published the collection in his book, In Search of Netsuke, in 1974. His son John was always fascinated by the various art forms that formed the collection and continued, though expanding outwards from the netsuke and inro, to include lacquer boxes, jade pendants and snuff bottles, which form the Chinese section of this disc. A number of the pieces shown here were illustrated in George Cohen's book.

One finds very few publications in these specialised days that combine Chinese and Japanese works of art. All of the small pieces within the collection are highly personal whether worn, handled, or made purely for use. The quality of work, subject to such very close inspection, rather than for display had, of necessity, to be the finest possible.

The Japanese collection divides automatically into two parts. The first of these encompasses the netsuke collection, featuring 57 examples, covering most of the major schools of carving and types. There are fine examples from Kyoto, Osaka, Edo, Nagoya, Gifu and Hakata, as well as unsigned and unattributable pieces from the early 18th to the late 19th century. It is difficult to pick out any one piece from the collection that stands out above the rest, but my own eyes were immediately struck by the ivory study of a cockerel and hen in a winnowing basket or corn scoop, by Otoman of Hakata (N7). His work is very rare and this appears to be the only recorded example of such a subject by him. The Kyoto artists, both of the 18th and 19th centuries are well represented by several examples, including the study of a reclining boar on Autumn leaves (N11), the wood study of a tiger (N14) the ivory goat by Tomotada, (N23) and the fine study of a bullock or ox, by Okakoto (NL32).

The work of artists from the Asakusa district of Edo (now Tokyo) have always interested me and I was delighted to see the two wonderful examples by Ishikawa Rensai, the stag-antler model of a frog on a mushroom (NL18) and the somewhat similar study of a rat on a peach (NL20).

The second section is devoted to inro and small lacquer boxes. Here, the time span is somewhat shorter, most having been made during the latter part of the 18th and the 19th centuries. Among these, one might select (L1), an unusual tan-ground lacquer inro, decorated with rats stealing eggs by Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891). Other master lacquerers represented include Yamada Jokasai (L3,  L20,  L26), Yamada Toyoyoshi (L24,  L27), Tokusai (L7), various generations of the artists called Shiomi Masanari (L9,  L11,  L12,  L32), Shunsho (L10), Hasegawa Shigeyoshi II (L15), Koma Kyuhaku (L4), Koma Koryu (L23), Koma Kansai (L2), Hara Yoyusai (L29) and one extraordinary inro decorated in the elaborate Shibayama style by Nemoto (L6).

The collection also includes a fine selection of 26 small boxes, combs and other lacquer items, as well as other items of Japanese decorative arts of the Meiji period (1868-1912).

By some standards, the collection is not large. However, it does not need to be; there is much to be said for quality, rather than quantity and the present collection has the former in abundance.

Neil K. Davey

Website: https://www.sothebys.com