Foreword When I began my apprenticeship at Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne in 1964, I had no idea what was meant by Asian art in Europe or that there were works of art from Asian countries sought after by collectors in Germany and Europe. At my first auction in 1963, I was witness to an exciting prize duel. A so-called „Obi Hasami-Netsuke“ from stagantler, cat. No. 474, went from an estimate of DM 200 to the unprecedented sum of 4,800 DM. This was reported in the German press along with the buyer’s name, our then President of the Bundestag, Carlo Schmid. I think he too was astonished, if not frightened, that his piece had achieved such an increase. On my first trip to Japan in 1972, I discovered that a Japanese reporter from the Deutsche Welle, who attended this auction had also sent his report to Japan. This had been published the next morning in the radio news that a Netsuke had been sold in Cologne for the incredible sum of more than $ 1000. During this trip I visited the two English speaking Netsuke dealers Ito and Ouchi. When I mentioned coming from Cologne, Mr. Ouchi, cried out ‘Kerun’ which is, how Japanese pronounce the name of my home town. He then explained - visibly delighted and with some malice – about the inglorious response of Raymond Bushell, the well-known author of numerous books on the subject. In those days Raymond Bushell visited the local Netsuke dealers weekly, and left the gallery quite indignant when Mr. Ouchi asked him whether he would pay him $ 1000 for his or that kind of Netsuke in his shop. When he declined, Ouchi had threatened to send his good pieces in the future to auctions in Cologne. Whilst he did not do this, Sammy Yukan Lee, who emigrated to Japan, thereafter regularly sent us boxes full of netsuke with incomprehensible labels. These experiences had aroused my curiosity, which were quickly satisfied by our Dutch expert for Japanese Art, Mr. J. van Daalen. I built a close working relationship with him over a period of more than 10 years, and owe him much knowledge in this particular field. In the 1970s, auctions with those small objects were held at horseshoe-shaped tables, around which the collectors - who were mostly well known or even friends sat. Initially, each would inspect the pieces of his choice, which wandered from hand to hand, then was hushed up, depending on the ‚gusto‘ and purse, also hiding against each other, sometimes taking care of each other, or the interest by deputies who executed the bids. My job was to show the Netsuke along the tables as a sort of Number-Miss, and I could observe the often friendly relations among the collectors. This system was also applied at Sotheby‘s in London, where one sat at tables and the pieces could be viewed. On my first visit there, I met the great collector Edward Wrangham, whom I had previously met years before at the entrance to the auction-house Lempertz, the strenuous trip clearly visible. Unshaven and with cycle clips around his trouser leg, I initially suspected he had cycled to the airport. I learned quite soon that as there were no direct flights to Cologne, he had to fly to Hamburg and travel all night to the Rhine. This led him to fall asleep during the auctions, although he always woke as soon as a piece that interested him was called. In these early years I also met the prominent pianist and Brahms performer
Katalog 394 | Netsuke
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