Tag Archives: bone and ebony mahjong

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Here is a set to love.

A reader contacted me with photos of this incredible set. I must confess I almost fell out of my chair when I first saw the images. Not only is this an elaborately carved set, it has ebony backs! I had only seen photos of one other such set, in the Mahjong Collector Magazine. I wanted to write this one up for Valentine's Day.

A bit of background. The reader was not looking for a set, but happened upon it while trying to find a piece of furniture. Needless to say, the idea of the cabinet went away, and this set, of course without the practicality of the cabinet, took its place!  I certainly can understand that-who needs a cabinet when you can have a treasure!

So let's look closely at the tiles:

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The Winds are charming with squash at the edges. (Squash, with all their seeds, are symbols of the wish for many children.)

 

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The Dragons have the goldfish (symbol of wealth and prosperity) on the Green and Red Dragons. Don't you love those long fishtails? The White Dragons have what I believe to be butterflies.

 

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Longevity symbols made it to the Dots. Five bats are surrounding the longevity symbol on the One Dot (bats symbolize longevity and good fortune; here they can be identified by the orange backs) and the longevity symbol is in the middle of all the other Dots.

 

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The goldfish is the One Bam, and longevity symbols are the other Bams.

 

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Even the Craks are beautiful, with peaches (symbols of longevity) in the corners.

 

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The Eight Immortals make up the Flower tiles. I wonder if this set was made in the same workshop as an orphan tile I have, seen below. When I saw that tile I realized the art on these sets can be terrific, inspiring Mah Jongg The Art of the Game.  I think it is possible some of the high-end workshops might have worked in bone and bamboo as well as bone and ebony. Or if they didn't, maybe it was the same designer who did both sets.

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Ebony sets do not look any different from other sets, except from the side. Here is that smashing side-view:

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You will notice that ebony is much flatter than bamboo, making the building of walls two tiles high much easier.

The box is a treasure as well:

deeply carved front of box
deeply carved front of box

 

back of box
back of box

 

side of box with brass detail
side of box

The sides of the box have brass details.

This set was really loved. The owner (or someone close to the owner) needle-pointed a square that is used in some versions of mahjong. The piece indicates to players which wall will be used first when starting play. I can certainly understand why this set would have been loved, can't you??

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You can see the four orientation points, (West is on the bottom here) and the numbers show which wall be be the first to be used in the deal,  based on the rolls of the two dice. If the player rolled a 3, 7 or 11, the wall in front of West would be the first, and play would go in a clockwise direction from there.

Happy Valentine's Day.

 

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There are two main reasons this website was begun: we hope readers will develop an appreciation for the incredible skill of the men who carved and painted the designs we love so well, and wish the word would spread that these sets are truly special pieces of art. The carvers who made these sets had a great grasp of Chinese art, and used many of the inspirations around them while designing these tiny tiles.

Asia Art Week is going on in New York City this week. Collectors and dealers come from all over the world. There are fabulous pieces of art, ranging from very early pieces that are thousands of years old to Contemporary works. So far, no mahjong sets have put on display, but we're working to change that! You can see some of the pieces of art online on the Asia Week website.

These tiles have been on the website before. They are from the Bone and Ebony set on Michael Stanwick's website. Here are two photos taken of traditional Chinese landscapes that were on view at Sotheby's NY over the weekend. You will quickly see  the inspiration behind these tiny landscapes. The artist was able to capture a very restful scene on each one. The Chinese translates to wishes for longevity extending life.

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This painting was done by Dong Bangda who lived from 1699 until 1769. It is entitled: Fishing Boat on River. You can see a person in a boat, on the left about a third of the way up from the bottom, trees along the water's edge, rocks and mountains, quite like we see on the Flowers. You can also see a small pavilion on a rock, just above the boat. A pavilion is also found on two of the Flower tiles.

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This is a more recent work by Huang Binhong who lived from 1864 until 1955. The work is entitled landscape, but has much in common with the older one above and the Flower tiles. Once again we see a small boat on the water, rocks, mountains and trees.

On both paintings we see Chinese characters, not unlike the Chinese writing that accompanies the numbers on the Flower tiles.