The Artistry of China’s Ivory Puzzle Balls

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/puzzle-balls-from-guangzhou

by mcenedella • 7 years ago

43 10 7 years ago

zackkatz• 7 years ago

Really beautiful pieces. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t give any details as to their creation. Just check out the pictures.

bshep• 7 years ago

Quote from the article:

The region’s method is detailed in an 1876 publication by the Scottish photographer John Thompson, who traveled extensively around China. According to him, an artist first used a lathe to rotate a block of ivory, shaping it into a sphere. They then drilled evenly distributed conical holes towards the ball’s center. Accessing the interior with an L-shaped tool, they would carve grooves to form concentric gaps, creating layers. “Hole after hole is in like manner centered,” Thompson wrote, “until all the grooves are cut, and meeting each other, the innermost ball falls into the center of the sphere. This inner ball is then moved about and carved with long tools passed through the holes, after which the bent chisel is again brought into play to cut out the next ball.”

bitcurious• 7 years ago

"This traditional art from Guangzhou can never be produced legally again."

Weird tagline, both crass and wrong. There are legal sources of ivory, mainly antiques and mammoth tusks.

kingkawn• 7 years ago

The trade in pre-existing ivory is being made broadly illegal as well

sethish• 7 years ago

Agreed. Walrus ivory is legal in the US provided it goes through a native Alaskan.

reaperducer• 7 years ago

During America's Civil War, solders made similar pieces of art from bones, wood, or whatever was at hand.

Some of the simpler items I've seen in museums were linked chains made from a single bone. The more detailed ones were round balls carved inside of square cages.

To be sure, they were nowhere as advanced as these Chinese artworks. But then, the soldiers were just using whatever was laying around, and were also busy fighting a war.

paulsutter• 7 years ago

Can never be produced legally again? What about synthetic ivory?

https://www.nature.com/articles/507040a

Synthetic ivory can now be crafted to the same diagnostic standards as genuine ivory (see M. E. Sims et al. Ethnobiol. Lett. 2, 40–44; 2011), and its price in China is only about 14% of that of real ivory

anonu• 7 years ago

The presentation linked in the article has some awesome images of the individual spheres:

https://www.cwi.nl/events/cwi-scientific-meetings-1/cwiscien...

Isamu• 7 years ago

VERY interesting presentation of details on how the nested spheres were carved, with some surprising results, e.g.:

layers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are clearly visible

layers 6, 7, 8 and 9 are carved ‘blindly’

fredophile• 7 years ago

Several people on here seem concerned about this no longer happening due to restrictions on ivory. You can still get these in other materials like stone. I have one that is "jade" (more likely some random cheap green rock) that I bought in Hong Kong about a decade ago.

The Artistry of China’s Ivory Puzzle Balls

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