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Antique Chinese puppets were often made in several parts with removable heads. This antique carved head of a beauty has delicately painted features and an animal hair braided down the back. Since there is an area without hair towards the back, she likely originally wore a hat or headdress. A hole on top probably accommodated strings.
Finely detailed and carved from dense wood, this Kitchen God and his Wife monitor the members of the home from their perch above the stove. Near mirror images of each other they wear layered gold officials’ robes with decorative sashes and symbolically hold a hu tablet. They are in excellent condition with most of the original pigmentation and gilt and make unique wedding gifts..
H: 9.25” W: 5.75” D: 2.25” | FREE SHIPPING!
This antique-Chinese-wood-carving is a hand-carved Nuo Opera mask from Southern China of a smiling woman with a slender face, delicate features and hair in a topknot. She is a zhengshen, a friendly female deity (shen) with a kind, honest nature and a gentle disposition and a symbol of the power of good capable of defeating evil. Most Nuo masks are brightly painted, but the age and heavy use of this one has resulted in paint losses. Different colored bases under the reddish-brown indicate it was repainted and reused a number of times. The bright red lips have faded and areas around the eyes, mouth, nose and hair reveal what may be an original first layer of white gesso. Mask enthusiasts will appreciate the resulting paint and lacquer layers which tell the story of this mask’s colorful history, and, yes, the pun is intended. In very good condition for its age and use and for its journey surviving China’s modernization, masks like these were initially considered ethnic folk-art offerings to the gods and part of the VA Deities-and-Legends collection.
This amusing antique Nuo Opera mask portrays Tudi Gong, the benevolent Earth god with a smiling animated face, long eyebrows, a hemp beard and large ears wearing a high decorative hat. Tudi is a zhengshen, a god who is kindly, honest with a gentle disposition, symbolizing the great power of good, through which evil can be defeated. Nuo was popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties and although they are still performed in rural areas, there are few remaining troupes.
Chinese puppet theatre thrived, educated and entertained people with puppets that usually had detachable heads. A very popular figure, the Queen Mother of the West is one of the highest ranking female Taoist deities venerated by women as a powerful, independent deity embodying yin (female energy) who they prayed to for health and long life. Her complex elaborate headdress includes a large outstretched tortoise atop her iconic symbol, the phoenix, all flanked by two nagas under an arch bordered with a scale like finish, a truly unique and impressive image. She is mounted on a modern contemporary frosted acrylic base.
This antique male puppet head was carved from a single piece of wood, and like most puppets, has a tapering neck. With a well carved calm, peaceful expression, downcast eyes and half-smile, it could have been for either religious or secular purposes. The thin ridge on his forehead indicates it was likely used for various of roles in different stories.
This antique hardwood local female deity from a provincial area in South India is a Devi, a positive female spirit and fertility deity. Hand crafted as a child’s toy, it was intentionally crudely carved without much detail and created to entertain and instill pride in the local community’s heritage and religion. It has a shiny patina from natural hand oil as it was handled daily for a century or so.
Jetayu is the mythical demi-god divine bird in the Hindu epic the Ramayana. It is a very rare Balinese mask with a fine patina from decades of dance performances. The crowned forehead and snout, huge round eyes, wide-open mouth, curled leather tongue, expressive jaw muscles with upper and lower sets of piercing sharp teeth in graduated sizes reflect the pinnacle of skilled woodcarving and polychrome painting.
The third eye on this topeng bondres is ironic, as it depicts a very odd clown-like, personality. Very well-carved, he has uneven bloodshot eyes, an almost hairless head, angular bony eye-sockets and a recessed face with black age lines on each side of a puny nose. The protruding red lips, open mouth with two teeth and mustache are not balanced and describe a weirdo demanding our attention. He is a strange and wacky Balinese jokester who evokes laughter and is exactly what the Balinese love: a abnormal slapstick clown with physical oddities. Personally collected in Bali in the 1970s, this piece is in excellent condition for its age and use with expected minor paint losses and scrapes.
Central to Balinese culture and lore, Rangda is the demon-queen ruling an army of witches practicing black magic. Frightening, she has two upper fangs and two lower fangs now lost, scary teeth, jagged elements around her head, bulging eyes and is red symbolizing someone angry and threatening. In very good condition considering its age and use, it has expected paint losses, scratches and a fine patina. Personally collected in the 1970s, she is mounted on a museum-quality metal stand.
This finely carved vintage jauk mask is the manis (sweet, softer) version of a jauk mask. It and the dance present the gentle traits of a giant having more normal human-like features and a smile, and its white color is usually symbolic of purity. Those colored red or orange represent one easy to anger. Collected in the 1970s in Lombok, this mask is rare as then Lombok the Balinese community usually did not sell their masks. It has a fine aged patina with expected hairline cracks and frayed eyebrows consistent with its age and use.
This unique carved head is the Queen Mother of the West, the first Chinese deity to be represented in Chinese art and the most important female deity in the Taoist pantheon. Carved from a single piece of wood, it is either a puppet head or was attached to a larger figure. Her headdress has three phoenixes instead of her iconic single phoenix. Having a cavity on the rear of the head is rare indicating it might have been consecrated by a Taoist monk.
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