This is a fabulous French wooden Mahjong set by Arkmel. The design of the box is delightful, with a center logo which somewhat resembles a stylized eye. The wonderful lizard will reappear on the One Dots. The set is made of simple small pieces of wood with paper decals.
Enjoy the One Dot and One Bam. How delightful are they? More tomorrow!
This is the box which holds the Mahjong tiles thought to be from Tibet. Its center is inset bone, as are the four round corners. They seem to be the four activities of the scholar: top left, clockwise: music, the game of go, writing, and painting.
These are images from Wikipedia which helped with the possible identifications; the paintings were done by an unknown Ming artist.
You can see the musical instrument on the lower left. Note too the peacock, peonies, and the plants in pots.
Here is the game of go, played on a square board. You can also see tea being poured, a wall behind the go players, and a person carrying a fan.
Here the scholar is doing calligraphy. You will also note the ornate table, the ginger jar in the background, and once again the wall behind.
The scholar is holding a paint brush which also resembles a fly whisk. He is copying the painting presented to him.
To read more about this, click here
A figure riding a water buffalo and playing a flute is very common in Chinese art. Here is a sculpture from liveauctioneers:
Here is the link to this image:
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/14925142_two-chinese-carved-ivory-immortals
A reader sent this photograph of this exquisite red lacquer box. As you can see, a dragon is depicted, playing with a pearl, and frolicking in the clouds which are hiding parts of him.
Helmut Nickel, the Curator Emeritus from the Arms and Armor Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote in his paper in 1991 that in China dragons are not fearsome creatures. They are often seen playing with a pearl in the clouds, bringing life-sustaining rain to the world. Oftentimes the pearl has flamelike swirls surrounding it, indicating some type of luminescence. Because of that, people in the West often think the pearl is either the sun or the moon; the dragon plays with it, trying to swallow the pearl to cause a solar or lunar eclipse. But in Chinese art, it seems that the dragon merely plays with the pearl and the pearl enriches his life. The image of dragon with a pearl started in the T'ang period (618-907), and the motif might have originated in Central Asia.
Wikipedia indicates the pearl is associated with wealth, good luck and prosperity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon
Here is a panel from the front of another box
You can see the dragon partially obscured by the clouds here too.
And now a view of a piece of furniture offered for sale by Philip Colleck, Ltd., on display at the Winter Antiques Show in New York City:
This magnificent dragon is the middle level of a Chinese export lacquered three tiered etagere.
For more about Philip Colleck, Ltd., click here
http://www.philipcolleck.com
and the Winter Antiques show, click here:
http://www.winterantiquesshow.com
I am ending the year on a very wishful note. This delightful ebonized box with mother-of-pearl inlay has five stylized bats on the front panel, and another five on the top of the box. According to Wolfram Eberhard's A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, a bat is a symbol of good luck and happiness and this might be because the Chinese word for "bat" is very similar to the word for "good fortune." Five bats together signify the five blessings: long life, riches, good health, a life of virtue, and a natural death. The five bats here on the panel surround a symbol for longevity, so this really is a wish for wonderful luck.
This is the top of the box which also is a wish for longevity and good fortune. You see the five inlaid mother-of-pearl bats surrounding a metal butterfly. In Chinese a butterfly is a symbol for longevity, because the second syllable in "hudie," the word for butterfly in Chinese, is pronounced the same as "die,"the word for 70 or 80 years of age. *
This is a good online resource for symbolism in Chinese art.
* http://primaltrek.com/impliedmeaning.html
And here is how you can tell if a box is real ebony or ebonized: real ebony has very few visible grains in it. Most often boxes were painted black to give them a more dramatic look, and certainly a black box offsets lovely mother-of-pearl inlay.
You can see the grain hidden below the black paint here.
This little set is quite delightful in the designs seen on the tiles. The Craks are painted with a bit of flair, and the Dots have plum blossom centers. (Plum blossoms have five petals, symbolizing the five blessings. ) I think the One Bam bird has a lot of spirit, and the other Bams are unusual with their white striped markings. One set of the Flower tiles has the flowers often seen on these tiles. The Red and Green Dragons have the traditional letters and symbols on them: Green has the F for Fa (prosperity) and Red has C for Chung (Center). The White Dragon has the P for Po (blank).
These are wind indicators. Interestingly they have some French words (Nord, Est, Sud but not Ouest for West) for the directions, but English words for the seasons and flowers. These pieces of wood are quite big, each about the size of 12 tiles put together. The Winds have a lot of "personality" in the way they are painted.
The set came in this sweet cardboard box with wooden button drawer pulls.
This delightful brass box holds an equally lovely set of Mahjong tiles. The panel which forms the front of the box has a man in a boat, similar to those often seen on some Chinese Bakelite Flower tiles. The wood racks were early versions and were only used to keep a player's Mahjong tiles secret; when a tile was called, that grouping would be placed on the tabletop.
Note the lovely flowers seen on the back of this box. As in many very expensive sets, this box was designed to have all its sides seen. The box handles are very heavy, giving an important look to the box.
The Flower tiles on this set feature modes of transportation and types of buildings. The unusual One Dots have linear interiors, and the others are circles within circles. The Bams are of the simple rod type. One of the Flowers features a man in a boat, similar to the one seen on the front panel of the box. The tiles are in exceptional condition, with few of the streaks often seen in the bone and bamboo sets. The counting sticks are smooth, unlike the more ragged appearance of those in less expensive sets.
http://www.invaluable.com/catalog/viewLot.cfm?afRedir=true&lotRef=4f482f267b&scp=c&ri=1350