Posted 10 years ago
Elderlymax
(9 items)
BEAUTIFUL STATUE OF ASIA/ORIENTAL ORIGIN - FABULOUS DETAILED WORK - MATERIAL UNKNOWN - ALMOST THE SAME AS THE BRONZE FIGURE POSTED BY 'TORACAT' 2 YEARS AGO ?
FABULOUS BUT UNRESOLVED STATUE ORIGIN & MATERIAL | ||
| Chinese Antiques533 of 911 |  |  |
Welcome to CW Elderlymax!
Sorry to say your statue, very decorative, is made from a kind of resin...
Carving is not crisp and neat, on enlarged pic 3 you can see minute balls/bubbles in the pleats near the long form.
These can be easily removed, if you burn them they will melt!
Or follow Jwendell advice on another post :
"I suggest the following: Using pliers, force the eye end of a large needle into a wine cork. Using a candle, heat the point of the needle to a red heat. Quickly apply the tip with some force against the bottom of the vase where it will not show. Examine with a magnifier. Resin will be penetrated and may leave a small crater surrounding the hole. Stone, ivory, bone, and most thermoplastics (eg. Bakelite) will not be marked."
Kyaratango -many thanks - very disappointed - the small balls/bubbles do not melt - I have removed several and crushed them - they are white inside. like a tiny white ball coated in the brown/black exterior. regards
jwendell222 - Hi many thanks for your comments - Yes there is a very tiny white spot when a ball is removed but not every time - However - I have scraped the base of brown coating and it is white!
the coating appears to have been applied on top of the white base! the statue weighs 1.250kgs. this is what intrigued me - the weight & appearance - it appears to be a good copy - many thanks again
I have a statue that looks identical to yours, but mine is one of a pair. The second statue is a bit different , a man with a long narrow beard and, apart from the sword, with something that looks like a scroll (unfortunately broken) in the other hand. He is also bent also bent the other way. I bought them more than twenty years ago in a little shop behind the Jama Mashid in old Delhi, where the seller could not say anything about material or origin. My statue is shorter, 39 cm from top of head to bottom hem, but then it has two small very plain feet, which are fixed to a quite rough round base, altogether it is 44 cm tall. Strangely enough, it weighs more than yours: 1.84 kilo., although the wooden base appears quite light. My statues look a bit more faded than yours. I assumed they were made of some sort of horn, because of the shape, but wondered why they were blackened. If the material is resin (what sort of resin?), I suppose that means it is a copy meant to look like something else. But still it would be interesting to know what the figures represent.