(NWPR-OH) – “Life in Miniature: Ceramic Netsuke from the Silverman Collection” showcases more than 200 rare objects in Toledo Museum of Art’s Asian collection, most of them from Japan’s Edo Period (1615-1868). Comprised of 226 ceramic netsukes, the show examines their utilitarian use and the cultural meaning of netsuke, including their iconography as well as their depiction of everyday and fantastic subject matter.
Wealthy Japanese men wore opulent personal accessories such as inro (cases) that attached to their silk clothing by small fasteners known as netsuke (pronounced NET-skeh). Netsukes were created in a wide variety of materials and eventually became highly collectable for their wit, whimsy and craftsmanship. “Ceramic netsuke are quite rare and, as a result, quite valuable,” noted TMA curator Carolyn Putney. “Anyone who likes to collect will marvel at this fine collection. The very existence of these fragile miniature sculptural objects makes them significant.”
Also on display are kimono, paintings and the Museum’s fabulous gold-ground Japanese screens showing Kyoto, where many of the objects were made, all on view through February 27, 2011 in Gallery 18.