Oh, by the way, I recently came across an image of a small antique ivory netsuke that was on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The creature is called a baku, described as a “curious long nosed creature.”

To my eye it looks like a miniature wooly mammoth, with a sinuous trunk, prominent and very elephantine like-tusks and elaborately flowing hair.

Baku. Mythical long-nosed beast. Ivory katabori netsuke, approx. 4.5cm in height. Victoria & Albert Museum.

But in this specific print of the Giant Nue by Kuniyoshi, in various reproductions found on the Internet, it is labeled as a “Giant Nue.” Quite interesting considering the apparent reptilian affinities and yet this “animal” looks unlike the crocodilians shown in art I was also able to gather for the same artist.

Ah, it’s a mystery and we like those here.

Kuniyoshi is one of my favorites. I actually have a print of his hanging up in my home (not an original of course). His work is ubiquitous in Japan.

I’m curious of the work labelled as a “Nue” above. The painting of the “Nue” above is interesting to me in that it is not keeping with the traditional appearance of these legendary creatures. The Nue was typically described as being a chimera, having the head of a monkey, the tail of a snake, the legs of a tiger, and the body of a tanuki (racoon dog). Even other works by Kuniyoshi Utagawa depicting Nue look quite a bit different than the one labelled as such above.

Nue were thought to be bringers of bad fortune and sickness and were attributed shapeshifting powers among other things. For instance, they were said to be able to transform into a flying black cloud.