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  1. 29th June 2010, 06:49 PM #1
    curiouscarver
    curiouscarver is offline New Member
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    Question Strange Rare Japanese Sculpture- help!

    Hi!
    I have a family piece that's been passed on of uncertain origin.

    I figured here is as good a place as any to shed light on it! (re: style, origin, time period, wood type etc.)
    I've seen similar motifs (hawks/pine trees) in Asian works- particularly Chinese and Japanese- but nothing this large or exactly like it in any way.

    If anyone can tell anything about it, I'd greatly appreciate it!
    -Lisa

    PS- The piece stands at around 5 and a half feet.

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  3. 29th June 2010, 08:19 PM #2
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    movay_2008
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    Wow.Superb. . Possibly used in association with bonsai. done in Cherry wood my guess. It may have arrived in your family after the war, perhaps the fifties?

    A complementary poem from Shiki:

    Double cherry blossoms
    Flutter in the wind
    One petal after another.

    http://www.terebess.hu/english/haiku/shiki.html
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  4. 29th June 2010, 11:05 PM #3
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    movay_2008
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    The wood looks too well coloured to be of much age. Seeing as you are in California (?) it could well be Chinese and produced there.
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  5. 29th June 2010, 11:16 PM #4
    Frank&Earnest
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    Quote Originally Posted by movay_2008 View Post
    The wood looks too well coloured to be of much age. Seeing as you are in California (?) it could well be Chinese and produced there.
    That's my guess also. Size, timber and style make me think of a local, possibly but not necessarily of Asian origin, using Asian themes.
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  6. 30th June 2010, 05:49 AM #5
    curiouscarver
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    Thanks for your responses!

    I thought it might be Chinese too, but my boyfriend thinks it's Japanese and has been researching it longer than me so I posted it that way.
    How old it is is anyone's guess (although we think it's at least fifty years old) but that's one of the things we're hoping to get more clues on.

    I'll await more responses but thanks again for the input so far!
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  7. 30th June 2010, 08:41 AM #6
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    movay_2008
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    I feel sure its Cherry wood, which would have been a lot brighter red overall when first carved. The aging looks fifty to eighty years. The tree in the scene also looks like a stylized cherry, though the flowers look something like ginko leaves, which make me see it among ginko bonsai. Its too heavily stylized to be anything but modern (within 100 years). Again, a glorious piece and thanks for sharing it.
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  8. 2nd July 2010, 04:23 AM #7
    curiouscarver
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    Thanks movay_2008!
    We're thinking of getting rid of it and just have no idea where to take it to get looked at.
    We thought we'd begin by finding out what it could be first!
    Imagine lugging this thing around to a bunch of wrong places...
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  9. 2nd July 2010, 09:59 PM #8
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    movay_2008
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    That's okay, you seem to have brought me luck as I saw one of these today right up close. It was right by the side of the road after having caught something. I stopped right next to it and it sized me up for awhile then flew off.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...n_flight03.jpg

    I'd try bonsai societies.
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