Posted 8 years ago
racer4four
(586 items)
This is the latest addition to my animals from Sasaki.
This series was designed by Denji Takeuchi and shows his typically modern and restrained style.
Essentially flat front and back with grooves for the baby outline and the eyes. Great minimalistic design.
What are they? Rats? Mice? Possums?
Something cute anyway.
1980s
Lovely and cute!!!
Looks like meeses to me. [;>)))
Another sample of what i said while commenting Noritaki
Or is that meeces??? [;>)))
Great design, just love it!
lovely design!!!
Thanks Martika. I love Japanese cute....
Meeses? Meeces? Yep - either of these.
Thanks Blade!
Yes Ivonne - simple teaches us to appreciate things. Thanks so much for the love and comment.
Peggy and Sean - as great arbiters of design and taste I am so glad you like this.
I think Takeuchi was a master of design but it's always good to have the less one-eyed agree with me on something!
Thanks both.
Mice! Very cute.
I'd be willing to bet anything that these are mice, probably a mother and her baby; and that this is an okimono (decoration - roughly, "figurine") specifically intended for display in the Year of the Mouse.
The Japanese zodiacal calendar tends to refer to the "Rat" year as the Mouse year. I remember my tea sensei telling me that because there's a little ambivalence about rodents and cleanliness, it's preferable to depict the zodiacal mice as white rather than grey. (This may have been just her taste, but it seems to be a common practice.) And it's often popular to depict little ones, too - I suspect that way the "cute factor" overcomes the squeamishness!
It might be interesting to look at your other "animals from Sasaki" as I imagine you may find that they also depict the zodiacal animals (which, of course, the Japanese took from the Chinese calendar).
Thanks for clarifying it's mice RiF. I have most of the Takeuchi animals and most are exotic, elephant, rhino, etc.
Sasaki did seem to design to a Western market more than Japan for their animals series. However I have many other animals from other Japanese glassmakers and you are correct, they are almost always part of the zodiac.