124 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



top. For the fittings and carved adornments ivory has 

 been used, the designs covering a wide field of ornamentation 

 and showing Taoist immortals among pines and pavilions, 

 Confucian sages with their attendant students, pine- 

 clusters, pomegranates, birds, animals, and bats. The feet 

 are of ivory and the chain for suspension is of jade and lapis- 

 lazuli.* Another dome-shaped cage has for principal adorn- 

 ment a carved ivory dragon, its coils twining around 

 a post showing the sacred fungus and upholding the 

 perch. A wealth of small ivory carvings serves to embellish 

 the exterior, embracing double gourds on their stems, cranes, 

 legendary figures in grottos, ceremonial functions, and squir- 

 rels among grapes, the latter being a favourite Chinese 

 motif. The worm tongs and feet are of ivory. This was 

 adjudged for $475. f The height was 22| in. and the 

 diameter 14 in. The most ornate ivory carving is on 

 a cage into the construction of which horn, boxwood, and 

 ivory have entered as materials. The ivory carving con- 

 stitutes a lofty portal or entrance, with a multitude of 

 animal and symbolical figures, as well as a representation 

 of the famous Li Tai Peh, to whom attendants are offering 

 wine; surmounting the portal is a curious scene showing 

 the ablution of an elephant, one of the attendants engaged 

 in the task having been lifted up by the animal on trunk 

 and tusks. The ivory mounting offers the appropriate 

 flowers of the four seasons: lotus, peony, chrysanthemum, 

 and plum; the continuous ivory foot is carved, among other 

 figures, with those of two Fu-lions. For this ambitious 

 work the purchaser paid $400.} The highest-priced bird 

 cage, one that sold for $1,125, was of tortoise shell, but 

 had many accessories of carved ivory, including a boatload 

 of pleasure seekers and a central perch figuring a boy jug- 

 gler, balancing himself on his head upon an immense frog, 



*Catalogue No. 182; woodcut. fCatalogue No. 189; woodcut. {Catalogue No. 1. 



