Lost
in thought, the Immortal gently leaning forward holding a blossoming magnolia
branch is Mulan (Chinese for magnolia), the brave girl who disguised herself as
a boy and took her aged father’s place in battle. Here she appears as a fairy
like girl adorned with cascading ribbons, silks and embroideries; an example of
the elegance and refinement of the classic romanticism that spanned some six hundred
years from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368).
Carved
from a single piece of creamy ivory, the work is delicately colored with subtlest
tinting on the face, allowing the luminous glow of the ivory to become moist and
pearly skin. Intricately carved dainty fingers are tipped with pink fingernails.
Her sweet, sad features are precisely limned with the finest imaginable strokes
of the brush. The hair is beautifully carved and stained, wrapped into a high
chignon, part of it gathered into a bow at the back and cascading almost to her
waist, with a feathery fringe of bangs at the front. An alluringly beautiful carving,
highly detailed and perfectly finished. --RW
