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Re: Ivory figuire and mark

Posted By: Bill H
Posted Date: Dec 25, 2011 (05:43 AM)

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I am not very adept when it comes to these archaic-style characters, but it may be that the mark reads from left to right in Mandarin as 'Xian Yang' (��䁑 - Chinese Big5 encoding), which might be translated as 'Last Morning' or 'Previous Sunrise'.

Your photos don't lend themselves to a conclusive evaluation of authenticity or the material of your carving. The general appearance more or less resembles the kind of deity (a Daoist Star God perhaps) that would have been available from ivory carving shops in Both Hong Kong and Taipei during the third quarter of the 20th century, before the UN CITES treaty forced carvers to switch from endangered elephant ivory to fossil ivory from prehistoric mammoth tusks. The latter is recognizable by having quite a lot of natural cracking. Your piece seems to have been plugged on the base to hide the tusk cavity, something that would not necessarily be done with a plastic ornaments, which usually are solid throughout.

Best regards,

Bill H.

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