Seated Baku (Mythical Creature Devouring Nightmares)

Japan

Not on view

The baku is a mythical creature known to devour dreams and nightmares. It has the trunk of an elephant, the tail of an ox and the paws of a tiger .This piece is among the finest netsuke in the collection. Its surface is covered with slightly rounded protuberances, found on eighteenth-century representations of supernatural animals.

Seated Baku (Mythical Creature Devouring Nightmares), Ivory, Japan

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