Born in Osaka, Sansho learned netsuke carving from Dosho, one of the finest Osaka school netsuke artists. He is renowned for very eccentric and amusing figural netsuke often depicting ordinary people.
An almost identical netsuke by the artist illustrated, see George Lazarnick, Netsuke and Inro Artists, and How to Read Their Signatures (Honolulu: Reed Publishers, 1981), p. 913