An Antique Ivory Chinese Puzzle Ball

            I remember this antique ivory Chinese Puzzle Ball featuring a dragon sitting in one of my Great Grandparent’s display cabinets when I used to visit them as a child.  Can you see the dragon’s head?  I used to look at it through the glass and try and work out how many balls there were inside one another.  Many years later, when it sits in one of my own curio cabinets, I still cannot tell you for certain, although I know there are at least five and perhaps as many as seven!

The theme for “Looking close… on Friday” is “round”.  I thought this round ivory Chinese Puzzle Ball of four centimetres diameter, which features carved balls within balls, was perfect for the theme.

This Chinese Puzzle Ball sat in a cabinet with other souvenirs from my Great Grandparents’ travels and diplomatic posts during their long and interesting lives.  They did take a voyage to Shanghai in the very early years of the Twentieth Century, before my Grandmother was born, so I suspect it was acquired then.  It is late Nineteenth Century I believe.  Its yellowing is a sign of the ivory’s advanced age, as well as many years of my Great Grandparents and my Grandmother’s smoking.  It comes on its own stand, also made of ivory, which is a pillar around which a dragon like the one who you can see on the Puzzle Ball, a possible mate, curls itself.  The stand is fifteen centimetres high, and comes apart in three pieces which can be carefully screwed together.  The Puzzle Ball looks precarious atop its stand, but it actually sits on it quite securely.

Also known as Eternity Balls or Infinity Balls, they are commonly known as the Chinese puzzle balls.  They are an incredible spherical enigma that has been incorporated into various forms of decorative art for centuries. Puzzle Balls are typically made of ivory and have three to seven layers of concentric, hollow spheres, carved from a single piece of ivory!  Don’t ask me how they did it, but they are beautiful works of the carvers’ art.

Taken on: May 10, 2020

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/2.8, 1/50 sec, 6.2mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Focal Length:	6.2mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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