Wooden ( huangyang wood ) bottle

[OIB]

Just to share a wooden bottle in my collection ( 71mm x 36mm x 20mm ).

Carved on both sides, with one side depicting ' Fu Lu Shou ' meaning and the other side ' the Three Friends '.
i like the carving, though it is not full 3-D.

Any comment on the era it was done ?

Inn Bok

[Wattana]

Inn Bok,

Is this a bottle you once showed me? It looks familiar.

It is nicely made, but the overall shape, together with the 'intaglio' style of carving (where the entire carved work is set down from the surface) suggest a 1970s or newer date to me.

Do you know for sure it is made of huangyang wood? The wood looks like boxwood, but could be apple or pearwood. On the other hand, if it has a strong scent, it could be sandalwood.

Tom
PS: I just checked - huangyang mu ( 黄杨木 ) is Buxus microphylla, which IS boxwood!

[OIB]

Tom,

You hv not seen this. I showed you this blackish one which my wood expert friend told me it was a
kind of very hard wood.

Inn Bok

[Wattana]

Inn Bok,

I well remember this magnificent dark wood bottle! I just thought I had seen that boxwood bottle too. Maybe I saw something similar elsewhere.

I believe we tried to identify the blackish wood before. A number of very dark almost black tropical hardwoods were traditionally imported into China from Southeast Asia. Here are some possible contenders:

black rosewood (heitan mu); ironwood (tie li mu); black ebony (wu mu); or perhaps even zitan, although less likely.

Tom 

[YT]

Dear Inn Bok,

I have only seen burlwood and black lacquer Bottles before and not these two examples.
I was wondering if it is Zitan too as Tom suggested.

Cheers,
YT

[OIB]

YT,

I will bring along the next time I drop over the island.

Inn Bok

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Inn Bok,
     Both bottles are very nice, but the darker one is superb. I don't think it is zhitan, because I remember the colour of John & Penny Ault's zhitan wood floor in their Sino-Portuguese merchant's home in Phuket town, and it is different from this. My vote would be the black ebony (wu mu) mentioned by Tom, though it could also be the black rosewood (heitan mu).
  My first thought was that it was buffalo horn. It looked like an ornately carved bottle in buffalo horn, carved in 'Hindustani style', as this one seems to be.
Best,
 Joey

[AntPeople]

Hi Inn Bok :

My guess for the dark bottle is Wu Mu (乌木)...... I don't think its a Zhitan and definitely not a TieLi Mu... TieLi will have very visible grain and the colour will not be so black (usually darker shade of brown)...... Zhitan might come closer in colour but will likely also show a level of wood grain....

Pin

[Wattana]

  My first thought was that it was buffalo horn. It looked like an ornately carved bottle in buffalo horn, carved in 'Hindustani style', as this one seems to be.

Dear Joey,

I too immediately thought of horn when I first saw this bottle. But it was too heavy, and on close examination the pin-prick vessels or pores (a characteristic on the cross-cut of all hardwoods) were visible.

Tom

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    If it is so heavy, than Ironwood and Black Ebony are prime candidates. Is Black Rosewood very dense and heavy as well? However, I thought Buffalo Horn also had such 'pores'.
    Best,
       Joey

[Wattana]

Dear Joey,

About pores on buffalo horn, I'm not sure, but items made from horn are relatively light in weight. The bottle, if I recall correctly, is not.

Most of the woods mentioned in my earlier post have a specific gravity close to that of water, and in the case of ironwood it will sink.

Tom

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    The late Victor Topper had a carved horn bottle, and it had quite a weight to it. I don't know how well hollowed out it was, though. Friends of mine in Lanikai on the Windward side of Oahu in Hawaii, had their home compound (main building and 4 ancillary structures, guest houses, a boat house, etc.) all roofed with ironwood shingles. Boy! they are hard and heavy, and guaranteed to last 300 years in Hawaii, 200 years in rainforest situations, and places with strong temp.changes (very hot/very cold), where they will last at least 100 years. Sort of like blue Bangor slates, from Bangor in Wales, which are guaranteed for at least 400 years in Ireland/UK.
    Best,
      Joey

[OIB]

Thanks for all the input and comments

The black bottle was closely examined with Tom when he last visited Singapore. We both concluded that it could not be buffalo horn. I also felt that it could not be Zitan.

Inn Bok

[Wattana]

The black bottle was closely examined with Tom when he last visited Singapore.

Inn Bok,

If memory serves me (and it doesn't always) you showed me this bottle at our first meeting in Bangkok.

Tom

[OIB]

Tom,

i could not quite remember if it was in Bangkok or Singapore. I do remember seeing your inkstone bottle when in Bangkok !

Inn Bok