118 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



these carvings are adorned with rich and elaborate mount- 

 ings of gold and gems, thus combining, as in some of the 

 latest European work in this material, the art of the ivory- 

 carver with that of the goldsmith.* 



Chinese ivory carving, of which many specimens appear 

 in collections, is lacking in originality as compared with 

 Japanese work of this kind, where the things of everyday 

 life are cleverly, though rather grotesquely than naturally, 

 depicted, the details, however, being rendered with remark- 

 able fidelity to truth. There is also a quaint humour in the 

 designs that has a value all its own. The many netsukeSy 

 or buttons, in an endless variety of curious forms, are the 

 most characteristic productions of Japanese ivory carving, 

 both ancient and modern. From the workshop of Kuneda, 

 in Tokyo, come many of the finest modern pieces. Some 

 unusually fine specimens of Japanese ivory carving made 

 after designs by master artists were shown in the Paris Ex- 

 position of 1900. In Chinese ivory work the most original 

 productions are the so-called "magic balls" consisting of a 

 number of concentric, hollow spheres successively carved in 

 openwork, the clever artist turning and carving each inner 

 sphere through the apertures made in the one already fin- 

 ished; as many as half a dozen or more of these concentric 

 balls are sometimes cut from a single piece of ivory. 



There are two remarkable examples of "magic balls" 

 in the Robert L. Stuart Collection on the third floor of the 

 Public Library Building in New York. One of them is 5 

 in. in diameter and is made up of fifteen distinct balls; 

 the other measures 4 in. in diameter and comprises 

 nine balls. The balls are beautifully carved with minute 

 scenes, landscapes, and figures, each of the nine balls being 

 covered with a fret-work, very neatly rounded off and so 



*" Official Handbook of Ceylon Court, St. Louis, World's Fair, 1904," Colombo, 1904, 

 p. 167. 



