Monkey Gymnasts Posing for Totem Pole

These monkeyfolk are showing off their talents making a highly articulated totem pole of burnished brown boxwood about 3" tall. Though they may look like they're at least family as they are sitting on each other's shoulders, each has his or her own unique shape and personality. They could be a father, mother and offspring, they have not been carved explicitly to convey that meaning. The bottom one is the largest, but not dramatically larger than the others, and the middle one has a slightly larger, rounder face. "Father" holds his "spouse" firmly by the feet, and "she" rests her long-fingered humanoid hands lovingly on his furrowed brow, perhaps reassuring him that he's been doing a good manly service of anchoring and supporting their little family for many years and soothing his worries away with her humble gratitude. On her shoulders sits their offspring and arrow into the heavens and the future, nimble enough to balance unwaveringly by using his or her (there is no anatomical evidence)knees and prehensile handlike feet and toes without needing hands. For she (or he) holds a big bowl with something in it, while gazing upward and perhaps even offering the bowl to the heavens. There are two aspects of this figurine that mesmerize: The first is the richness of the dark browns and the burnishing toward mahogany that shows through on the top young one's knees and back and again across mom's back where it emerges more like polished wheat. The second is the family/generatinal symbolism. For just as the adult man, who saves himself from mass mediocrity by placing his physical support beneath the woman of his choice, lifts her up above the bustle of daily business to conjure up the fruit of her womb, so that the new generation can discover its own mana from the sky and offer up the chalice of its own devotion at the midpoint between earthly striving and the heavenly hosts, so does the fruit of the primates offer its own sacrificial bowl at the altar where genial carved art lifts off from material magnificence into the mystery of divine immanence.

This is a great Netsuke. We have consultants here in the collectables lane who help us when we can't find any information within our manuals or online resources to help us provide you with accurate dates of carving. Luckily these days the big carving operators provide the names of their onsite artisans. The carvings sold from these venues look as good as their older brethren. We like the honesty these vendors display, but the only way it helps us and you is that their prices are higher than ours, though our Netsukes are older, thus more valuable to collectors. We know all of the ones we inherited are over twenty five years of age, but the ones we collected ourselves we just don't know. But our consultants also occasionally sell boxwood Netsukes, including antiques over a hundred years old. They've had their shops for many years and are seasoned in this area in a way we are not. Hopefully one day we will be: Give us ten years.

Folks from two different shops place this little bunch of monkeys at between twenty and thirty years old. We picked these folks based on the fact that even if they are holding the piece, carefully inspecting it, and have had experience with a close match, they are still unwilling to be more precise than a ten year window allows.

Thanks for coming.

Item ID: 2249

$56 USD

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Dolphin Designs Artwear
Member since Sep 2010
Lawrenceville, GA

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