A boxwood netsuke of the twelve zodiac animalsBy Ga'no (born circa 1789), Suo Province, dated 1813The twelve animals clustered together, overlapping each other and forming a compact composition in dark stained and slightly worn wood, signed Boshu Bunka ju tori no toshi fuyu Ga'no sanjin nijugo kore o saku (made by the hermit Ga'no of Suo Province at the age of twenty-five in the winter of the tenth, tori, year of Bunka) with a kao. 5.1cm (2in).注脚黄楊彫根付　十二生肖　銘「防州文化十酉歳冬臥農山人廿五作之（花押）」　1813年Published:Lazarnick, NIA, p.385Earle, Huthart, p.170, no.147.The inscription provides us with an approximate birth date of this little-known maker, and confirms that he came not from Iwami, but from the neighbouring province of Suo.