Wood netsuke of a Dutchman with karako and trumpet

Netsuke with a standing figure of a Dutchman in a curly wig, his mouth open, bending forward at the waist, a tasseled, trumpet-mouthed musical instrument in his right hand, his left hand behind his back supporting a small Chinese child (karako) which climbs on his right shoulder.

The theme of foreigners, known during the Edo period as ijin or "different people”that indicates all the “non-Japanese", came from the strict rules intended by the Tokugawa shogun about the relationship between the archipelago and the external world: the stranger from Japanese point of view, had characteristics of pure exoticism, stimulating the imagination of many artists who represented this subject.
A virtually identical netsuke is published in : Netsuke and Inro from european Collections, Barry Davies Oriental Art (2002).