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Hello everyone, my name is Carlos and I wanted to ask you for help with a wedding gift. I was given this sculpture 20 years ago for my wedding and I don't know anything about it. Can you help me please? Is it Chinese or Japanese? Is it authentic or a copy? The sign under the sculpture is the name of the artist? Thank you in advance for your help.

Dear Carlos,

Yes, this is a japanese ivory miniature sculpture called Netsuke.

Its a autentic 20th netsuke(but not classic one). The signature 玉䒦 reads as Gyokuran - 玉 = Gyoku (“jade”). 䒦 = Ran (an old, rare kanji variant of 蘭, “orchid”, but the more common is 蘭).

So, Gyokuran means "Jade Orchid", a poetic name. There were a female painter called Ike Gyokuran (池玉蘭), but I do not know nothing on this netsuke carver.

Maybe you can looking for him on the internet and find something.
Have a nice weekend,
Renato Araújo

In my reading,
玉芝　-　Gyokushi

With regards,
I.Nagy

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