Netsuke, toggle of ivory, Fyfe Collection

Netsuke made of ivory carved into a ball of rats. A netsuke is used to fasten an inro, a small lacquered container, which hung from the sash of a man's kimono. They became miniature art forms in their own right.

This netsuke is ivory carved into a ball of seven rats with the himetoshi, holes for passing the cord through formed as part of their twined bodies. The netsuke is signed on the base tomonobu, a carver who worked at the end of the nineteenth century.

Rats are one of the twelve zodiac animals.

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