Antique Ivory 1

Ivory

Ivory has been used for making works of art from Biblical times onwards. The comparative ease with which it can be manip­ulated and its durable nature have always attracted craftsmen of all nations, and the latter quality has led to the preservation of a surprisingly large number of ancient examples. While the principal pieces made prior to the seventeenth century are now in museums, occasional examples appear on the market and fetch high prices. They are usually pieces with religious significance: leaves of small folding altar-pieces (diptyches) carved finely with scenes from the life of Christ or with the history of a saint.

More within the reach of the collector are figures. If European they date mostly from the mid-seventeenth century, but are later when Oriental. German carvers were prolific workers, and their output was rivalled only by that of Flanders where the sculptor Francois Duquesnoy (known as II Fiammingo) influenced many craftsmen. J. C. L. Luck made figures in ivory and also modelled in porcelain for the Meissen and other factories, and a number of porcelain groups and figures owe their origin to him and his fellow craftsmen in ivory. The range of articles made from ivory is very wide: large tankards heavily carved with numerous mythological figures and set off with elaborate silver mounts, snuff-boxes, tobacco-rasps for grating the 'noxious weed' to make snuff, candlesticks, and both religious and secular figures and groups, to name only a few.

Both the Chinese and Japanese were skilful carvers of ivory, and the former had two main centres of production: Pekin and Canton. At the latter were made many of the pieces which have been described as being 'more distinguished for bizarre com­plexity of pattern than for artistic feeling'. To that category belong the familiar 'concentric balls'; those ingenious collections of balls, loosely one inside the other and all of them painstakingly carved and pierced from a single piece of ivory. The carvings made by the Japanese are well known for their meticulous detail, often carried to extremes. They vary in size from several inches in height to the miniature netsuke. The latter were used ceremonially to hold the inro (or small medicine box) suspended from the girdle of the kimono by a silk cord, and their design is infinitely varied. The finest are the work of men who specialized in making them and the ingenuity of their design is matched by an exquisite finish.

During the past hundred years many reproductions of European ivories of all periods have been made, and it is true to say that a large number of the pieces thought to be antique (and shown as such with pride in the cabinets of collectors) are no more than a century or so old. Equally, but in more recent years, netsuke have been copied in great numbers, not only in ivory and similar materials that resemble it, but also in such entirely worthless substances as celluloid. The modern imitations of both Eastern and Western work show few signs of the great care and skill used in making the original pieces. Further, they have usually been smeared copiously with brown stain and dirt to simulate the dust of ages and hide their casual execution.

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Japanese Carvings

The carvings made by the Japanese are well known for their meticulous detail, often carried to extremes. They vary in size from several inches in height to the miniature netsuke.