Feather-Brush and Doran (a Kind of Medicine Case) with a Netsuke of a Rat

This surimono by Totoya Hokkei brings together three small objects from Edo daily life: a feather duster, a doran, which is a kind of leather medicine case worn at the waist, and a netsuke carved in the shape of a rat that anchors the case's cord. Hokkei arranges the three carefully against an empty ground, allowing each to be admired as a finely made thing. The doran's drawstring closure, the bristles of the duster, and the compact curl of the netsuke rat are each described with calibrated detail, the printer's burnishing visible in the gloss of the carved animal. The choice of subject is connected to the calendar: the rat (nezumi) is the first of the twelve zodiac animals, and prints featuring a rat netsuke were commonly issued for the Year of the Rat as auspicious greetings. Hokkei, a pupil of Katsushika Hokusai and a leading specialist in surimono within the Hokusai school, would have produced the sheet for a kyoka poetry circle, the accompanying verses turning on themes of prosperity, the orderly turning of the years, or witty observations on the everyday objects depicted. The print was issued in a small edition with metallic pigments and blind embossing typical of luxury surimono production. The work is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it joins many of Hokkei's still-life and emblematic compositions. It demonstrates the artist's preference for densely meaningful arrangements of small objects, each of which would have been familiar to his Edo audience as both a practical accessory and a symbol within a larger cultural vocabulary.