Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

The Hare with Amber Eyes

25/7/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
‘Be careful of the unwarranted gesture: less is more’
       -  Edmund de Waal- The Hare with Amber Eyes
​
I’ve been saving up The Hare With Amber Eyes, which has been in the best-seller lists for much of this year, for my trip to Japan. 
The story is based upon a collection of antique Japanese ivory carvings and the changing fortunes of their owners, from immensely rich Jewish merchants to the present owner, a potter, who is the author of the book. ​The story has a particular resonance for me because for many years I collected antique Japanese ivory pieces (known as okimono, from the Meiji period, 1868-1912) and only stopped adding to the collection when I ran out of space to display them. Ivory is deeply unfashionable because no-one wants to be associated with the trade in elephant’s trunks, and this taint has meant that these beautiful works of art which have been carved with astonishing skill can be bought relatively cheaply.

When I first took my family to Japan several years ago the first thing I wanted to do was to look at the collections of ivory in the Tokyo museums and to see what was for sale in their antique shops. I was surprised to find that the Japanese have almost no interest in okimono and that the National Museum in Ueno has almost no ivory objects on display.
​
The Hare with Amber eyes is a story about netsuke, a small toggle used to tie the belt of a garment. When, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the fashion for using netsukes fell, the craftsmen whose livelihood was threatened turned to making okimonos for the export market. The purchase by Charles Ephrussi of a collection of netsuke in Paris was a reflection of the craze for Japanese art in Victorian times, and we continue to admire these objects now, but the fashion has never caught on in Japan itself.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2020. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me