Familiars of Fortune - Lucky White Mouse 🔴 SOLD

Oil, acrylic and gold leaf on birch panel, 20x20cm. Comes with a signed palette that was used to create the piece, a shūgi-bukuro (祝儀袋) envelope containing a golden acorn necklace that the mouse is wearing in the painting. Halo glows by black light, see additional images).
In Japanese folklore, the white mouse is a sacred messenger of Daikokuten, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, associated with wealth, abundance and plentiful harvests. Its appearance was traditionally considered an auspicious sign of prosperity to come.
Here, my little white mouse raises its paw in the familiar maneki-neko gesture, beckoning good fortune towards its keeper. The plaque bears 招福 (shōfuku) — “inviting good fortune” — while the four-leaf clover brings an additional symbol of luck. The golden fields reference abundance and harvest, and the crescent moon represents new beginnings and intuition. The lightning references the famous legend behind the maneki-neko, in which a beckoning cat drew a samurai  away from the place where he had been sheltering beneath a tree; moments later, lightning struck the very spot he had just left, making the cat a symbol of protection and unexpected good fortune.
Wearing a tiny acorn talisman, symbolising potential and mighty things growing from small beginnings, this little familiar is a charm for prosperity, protection, opportunity and unexpected good luck.