BiographyWebb, Michael, 1934-2009. Michael Webb was an English carver of netsuke. A former Director and auctioneer at Sotheby’s, he carved as a hobby until 1976, when he became disenchanted at the way the auction rooms were changing and left London for Yorkshire, where he honed his art as a netsuke carver under the mentoring eye of Luigi Bandini of Eskenazi Ltd. He specialized in British animals, insects, crustaceans and other sea life, always working in boxwood.