The first comprehensive publication on the prodigious and extraordinary Japanese netsuke carver Kokusai (1835-1894). A milestone in netsuke scholarship: 258 generously illustrated entries make this the largest single assemblage of Kokusai's work, which, combined with information on the artist's colorful life, provide a fascinating insight into 19th-century Japan.

Kokusai lived in a time of immense social, cultural and artistic change, and his work - and indeed his own person - captures its contradictions. The Edo period was ending, the last breath of feudal Japan, and the Meiji...