Featured Carved wood figure w heads

Well great find/buy!

 

Ok, I finally have an interesting update on this piece!

The generous and helpful shop owner, from whom I purchased my recent Chinese porcelain pieces, looked at my pictures of these writings, read them, googled a few things, and then told me the following:

-this is a Buddhist carved fertility totem (my words) that was made for a "Mrs. Wong"

-it was made and blessed by a Buddhist monk / priest in the hope of having children, specifically a boy

-it very specifically dated: November 15, 1864, from 3:00 - 5:00 a.m. -- that's when the monk assisting Mrs. Wong wrote the scripts

-it says Hunan Province, and the reign of King / Emperor Tongzhi (Qing Dynasty, reigned from 1861-1875)

-the monk would write the details, somehow bless the eyes of the carving, then place it in a sacred part of a larger Buddha statue

-this carving is therefore blessed, and has a spirit, and I should treat it as such, perhaps playing it Buddhist music occasionally, in honor of its origin and the people involved

-it is not a 'Buddha' figure but more so like a 'saint' in Western terms

 

More!

- the backside of the same piece of paper is, rather than Buddhist, Taoist

- it too was written by a monk / priest (not sure the nomenclature), this one a Taoist holy man who would have had a certain kind of long hair (??); his name was Mr. Jong

And lastly, this item does not really have 'collectible' value, in the way a vase or artwork would, for example, but has value as a kind of 'folk art' / historical / spiritual / sociological artifact created by a loving person, rooted in one of the timeless human impulses: hopes and anxieties about our children (or in this case, lack thereof) (ok-- those were my words)

I still haven't taken the second piece of paper out of the cavity on the back. I am going to take the whole thing to her shop later this week and perhaps we will look at that one too--if she thinks it's appropriate. I'll be sure to follow up here if I learn anything else!

 

BRAVO! Thank you, Pots! How wonderfully detailed, and so evocative. I'm touched by the humanity...

 

Great stuff. Well done on getting this information. Very interesting. Thanks