ORIENTAL IVORY CARVINGS 119 



minute that there are a hundred piercings to the square 

 inch. 



These balls are all cut out by a tool provided with a small 

 curved piece of knife edge. The inner ball is cut first and 

 decorated. Undoubtedly many of the piercings were made 

 at one and the same time from the exterior, the drill passing 

 through the entire five inches of ivory and thus making thirty 

 piercings, one on either side of the fifteen spheres, or of the 

 material from which these spheres are then successively cut 

 out and decorated, within the centre of the group of balls. To 

 render the working possible circular holes are run from the 

 outer side to the middle of the ball, the outer aperture hav- 

 ing a diameter of f of an inch, the whole then tapering 

 down to a diameter of | of an inch at the centre. It is 

 these apertures which give the artists the opportunity to 

 reach the various surfaces of the many enclosed spheres, 

 evolving them out of the mass, one by one. 



Among the interesting modern ivory carvings shown in 

 the Chinese section of the Panama-Pacific International 

 Exposition was an elaborately carved elephant tusk, the 

 work of the Chinese ivory carver, Lien Hsun-hao. This 

 tusk, 14 in. long, is decorated with an intricate openwork 

 pattern in which appear the dragon forms so favoured by the 

 Chinese. There was also shown an ivory relief statuette 

 of the Chinese Goddess of Mercy. 



The Chinese exhibit contained a remarkable example of 

 a magic ball, consisting of no less than 28 elaborately 

 pierced balls, one within the other, the outside one having 

 a diameter of 4 in. It is mounted on a base from which 

 rises a slender shaft adorned with a series of loops and sur- 

 mounted by the magic ball. This intricate work is valued 

 at $170, and is a production of the expert Chinese ivory 

 carver, Li Hsao-yu, who was awarded a silver medal for 

 his work. He also exhibited a finely carved tusk 30 in. 



