This is the Monkey Pile netsuke, carved by Martin Perry in the days of Mascott Direct, before he made the move to Harmony Kingdom. The netsuke was authenticated by Perry at the ICE show in Rosemont in 98, as indicated by his initials on the bottom of the piece. This piece was carved by Martin Perry, and is made from crushed marble and resin. It is not a box like current Harmony Kingdom pieces, but a single solid piece. Martin Perry did a series of netsuke reproductions while with Mascott Direct, and this is from that series and is hard to find.
iThe piece depicts a pile of monkeys, a mother monkey with several babies climbing al lover her. The detail on this piece is incredible, and sharper than on several other Monkey Piles I have seen in the past. The monkeys' teeth are all clearly visible- they are almost ready to jump out and start chattering at you! :)
This monkey pile does suffer a mild version of the very common arm defect. Many Monkey Piles have a missing arm on the upper left top monkey. If you look closely at the front view, you can see where the top monkey on the left is missing his hand only. Apparently this was a very common mold problem, as nearly all of the Monkey Piles I have seen have had this same defect in varying degrees. This piece does not have the second common defect, though, which is a missing monkey foot on the back side. There are no other chips or problems with this pieces.
This netsuke was bought in May 98 from a retail shop. They did not have a box for it, but stated they had had the piece for a very long time, so it is possible that there never was a box for the piece (early pieces by MP and co. were shipped in just bubble wrap). The discolored area on the bottom is where the price sticker was, sort of proof that the piece had been in the store for ages.
Asking price:SOLD!!