Skip to main content

Japanese kagamibuta with a fly resting on a man's head

Image attached to O.37-1991

An image of Netsuke: kagamibuta. Unknown maker, Japan. Circular bowl, plain with indented ridge around the top edge and traces of green staining to inner rim, central himotoshi. Shibuichi disc, cast and decorated in relief with a fly resting on top of a man's shaved head above the wrinkled brow, the face cut off at the nose. The man's hand is raised as if to swat the fly. Finely stranded hair and eyebrows in shakudo and copper, the man's eyeballs in shakudo and copper, and the fly's eye is applied with copper. Ivory bowl with cast, metal disc decorated in relief and eyelet. Height, whole, 1.8 cm, width, whole, 4.2 cm, circa 1800-1868.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

About this image

Netsuke: kagamibuta. Unknown maker, Japan. Circular bowl, plain with indented ridge around the top edge and traces of green staining to inner rim, central himotoshi. Shibuichi disc, cast and decorated in relief with a fly resting on top of a man's shaved head above the wrinkled brow, the face cut off at the nose. The man's hand is raised as if to swat the fly. Finely stranded hair and eyebrows in shakudo and copper, the man's eyeballs in shakudo and copper, and the fly's eye is applied with copper. Ivory bowl with cast, metal disc decorated in relief and eyelet. Height, whole, 1.8 cm, width, whole, 4.2 cm, circa 1800-1868.

Image data

  • Accession Number: O.37-1991
  • Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
  • Aperture: f/32.0
  • Focal length: 100
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D
  • Photographer name: Image Library; Fitzwilliam Museum
  • Image height: 955 pixels
  • Image width: 1024 pixels
  • Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
  • Filesize: 92.55kB
  • Exposure time: 1/30
  • ISO Speed: 100
  • Fnumber: 32/1
  • Captured: 2000:01:01 17:25:07

Key words

19th Century cast circular copper disc disk faces facial expressions Fitz_AA flies fly himotoshi insects ivory Japanese kagamibuta male man metalwork netsuke relief round shakudo Shibuichi disc

Colours in this image

rgb(41,40,33), rgb(167,140,94), rgb(119,97,68), rgb(227,227,228), rgb(202,182,137), rgb(180,160,130), rgb(148,138,124), rgb(186,181,174), rgb(196,187,179), rgb(92,100,93), rgb(92,92,100)

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Japanese kagamibuta with a fly resting on a man's head" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-797559748 Accessed: 2024-04-23 09:24:00

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-797559748 |title=Japanese kagamibuta with a fly resting on a man's head |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-04-23 09:24:00|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-214822

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa40/large_O_37_1991_1_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Netsuke"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Japanese kagamibuta with a fly resting on a man's head</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>
    

Sign up for updates

Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...