Ivory Okimono, Signed, 20th Century - 12cm
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- Verso - Verso is the "back" side of a sheet of paper, art work, coin or medal. The front side is "recto".
- Ivory - Ivory is a hard white material that comes from the tusks of elephants, mammoth, walrus and boar, or from the teeth of hippopotamus and whales. The ivory from the African elephant is the most prized source of ivory. Although the mammoth is extinct, tusks are still being unearthed in Russia and offered for sale.
Ivory has been used since the earliest times as a material for sculpture of small items, both in Europe and the east, principally China and Japan.
In Asia ivory has been carved for netsuke, seals, okimono, card cases, fan supports, animals and other figures and even as carved tusks.
In the last 200 years in Europe ivory has been used to carve figures, for elaborate tankards, snuff boxes, cane handles, embroidery and sewing accessories, in jewellery and as inlay on furniture. Its more practical uses include being used for billiard balls, buttons, and a veneers on the top of piano keys.
The use and trade of elephant ivory have become controversial because they have contributed to Due to the decline in elephant populations because of the trade in ivory, the Asian elephant was placed on Appendix One of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in 1975, and in January 1990, the African elephant was similarly listed. Under Appendix One, international trade in Asian or African elephant ivory between member countries is forbidden. Unlike trade in elephant tusks, trade in mammoth tusks is legal.
Since the invention of plastics, there have been many attempts to create an artificial ivory
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Visually similar items
Antique Japanese ivory netsuke - man with pipe c1920, signed to base, 4 cm high
Antique 19th century French carved white marble figure of a scantly clad female on a noir marble base, approx 70 cm high
Antique alabaster figure group, depicting a boy and girl, 42 cm high
Two ivory figural okimono, by Sogyoku and Gyokushi (Tamayuki), 19th/20th century, the first of a lady with a small boy over her left shoulder, his hand extended clasping an insect, signed 'Sogyoku'; the second of an old man peeling an apple for a small boy