Featured Ivory

This is all pre ban Ivory legal to own but difficult to sell with no import certificate, not that I’d want to sell so no biggie. and some agara wood oil and incense… sometimes I wish pictures had smel, but most of the time I’m glad they don’t, lol.

 

nice frame....& I like the gals !!

 

Aww cute!!

I have a set of four ivory monkeys. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, and do no evil.

Never seen the three/four monkeys ever depicted as something other than monkeys before!!

 

I read the monkeys likely originated in China but first appeared in Japan in the 1700s and I had to look that up so I don’t know much about them. But the article did say it’s a monkey thing so I have no idea why this carver went off the rails?

Maybe he carved it as a lesson for his wife…

 

3 more, but it was good luck tonight. During my last move the girl on the horse lost her head, I thought it was thrown away in haste with the papers while unpacking 5 years ago but it was inside the little round box. The little round box is embellished with one of my baby teeth crushed replacing a little piece of mother of pearl, my mom did that to my tooth, lol.

 

I guess she is a perfume bottle.

 

I know them as snuff bottles, carved in Japan for the Chinese market.
Much in the same vein as the snuff bottles of Chinese ladies on elephants, also Japanese made for the Chinese market.

As an aside, ivory is not a good material for perfume. The same goes for bone, wood etc.

 

One of the local thrift shops here has a see no evil owl

 

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll see another 'lady on horseback' snuff bottle:
https://www.brandeis.edu/library/archives/essays/special-collections/jack-therese-katz.html

Lady on elephant snuff bottle, the same style, though lesser quality than yours:

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/94509/snuff-bottle-with-a-figure-seated-on-an-elephant

Auction result:
https://www.ripleyauctions.com/auct...ivory-elephant-figure-snuff-bottle_JKTJBJT6NR

 

Yep, I’d always thought of them as snuff bottles but the tiny hole provided by her neck would be almost impossible to get muck of anything in or out, even any liquid it wouldn’t hold much, lol.

i knew this as more a curiosity than having much value, one google hit dated this style as 1912 to 1940 that jive with your opinion? Realistically I was happy she isn’t decapated more than anything else.

 

According to my snuff bottle books they are 19th century. Maybe the lesser quality ones were made later, just like lesser quality netsuke.
Yours is very nice quality though, and I would date her to late 19th.

You are right about them being curiosities rather than functional bottles, but so are many snuff bottles. They were given as gifts to friends, and even presented as corporate gifts.
Even today there are many Dutch business people who have received snuff bottles from Chinese business associates. I'm sure you'll find them in the US business world as well.

 

Thank you, as always an encyclopedia of facts you knowledge is amazing… I have trouble remembering where I parked the car, lol.

 

I like the one eyed crab...

 

Yep, some fish bit it off, ha ha

 

likely....an octopus...

 

yangcheng lake crab, Chinese are crazy for these crabs my wife bought a condo near the lake just for the crabs, honestly they are expensive and labor intensive to eat… again Chinese seem to like lots of labor intensive food, it’s good for slow snacking during those 6 hour meals.

 

My wife’s name is Octopus, she’s guilty. “Yu”

 

The elephant with raised trunk is pick-of-the-litter for me. Thanks for the look!

 

Good choice, the one with the trunk down is bad luck.

 

I'm aware of that aspect...but my choice has more to do with the depiction of anatomical reality in it, rather than the caricature of the pudgy trunk-down creature above it. Both are art, high craft in precious material...