The “puzzle balls” are amongst the most wonderful of the Chinese carvings in ivory, where quite a number of loose balls of lessening sizes are contained within each other, and are all carved out of a solid ball of ivory. The outer surfaces of each ball are also carved with elaborate ornamentation. The method of cutting out these balls consists in boring a number of holes at regulated distances on the surface to a measured depth of the thickness of each outer shell, and then to cut around the circumference of each hole with a steel tool made with a bent end to suit the concentric curve of the sphere, and turned until each shell is freed from its next smaller ball. The Chinese puzzle balls are not very perfect examples of accurate turning, as the ornamentation conceals the rough workmanship in a great degree, but still they are marvels of skill and patience.
The Japanese carvings in ivory are better in an artistic sense than the Chinese, and exhibit the same surprising beauty of finish and minuteness of detail. All kinds of little cases for pens, jewels, powders and perfumes; little divinities, small caskets and cabinets put together with plaques of slabs of carved ivory, gilt and coloured with lacquers, and also encrusted with lapis-lazuli, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones. There is also the most wonderful little ivory figure and groups of animal carvings called netsukes. These in many instances are works of the highest order. Many of them are meant as embodied jokes, puns, or satires. Some consist of groups of real or sham cripples, beggars with monkeys on their backs, wrestlers, boxers, all kinds of domestic scenes, warriors on foot and on horseback; other subjects full of dignity and grace, and animal groups carved as no other people in the world can do. These netsukes are used not only as ornaments that are treasured for their own sakes, but also as dress-fasteners and as articles of personal adornment by the better classes in Japan.
Many other uses for ivory carvings are found by the Japanese, such as handles of swords and daggers, and some of their beautiful lacquered panels have encrusted eagles and other birds beautifully carved, and perched on the branches of trees, the latter being made from mother-of-pearl, and sometimes the flowers, foliage, and fruit of tinted ivory minutely chased.
India is famed for its extremely elaborate ivory carvings. The elaborated richness of Oriental ornament is seen in the ivory carvings of India more than in almost any other material except the goldsmiths’ work; but this may be more excused in such precious materials as ivory, gold, or hand-made laces, where it is quite legitimate to give to the ornament that necessary character of elaborate detail which always adds to the preciousness of the material.
Sometimes the carved ivory cabinets from India have Biblical subjects in the panels, which proves them to be works made to the order of the European missionaries, by native artists.
The ivory jewel casket with gold mountings (Fig. 127) is thoroughly Hindu in design and execution. Deified females with outstretched arms form a natural palanquin for the seated figure of an Indian divinity; other figures act as palanquin bearers, and the intervening spaces are richly filled with characteristic foliage and fruit.
Fig. 127.—Ivory Casket with Gold Clasp and Hinge; Indian. (Jacquemart.)
Ivory carving is so extensively carried on throughout India that it would be difficult to say in what part of the country it was not done. In some districts ivory carving in certain articles is done to the exclusion of others. Bison horn is carved at Ratnagiri.
Tortoiseshell is plentifully used for carving in Bombay. The Hindoos, like the Chinese, carve fans in a wonderfully delicate manner. Ivory bracelets, little elephants with all their trappings, tigers, oxen, gondolas, fully-rigged ships, hunting scenes, gods and goddesses, &c., are all made in ivory throughout India.