African Scrimshaw Engraved Warthog Tusk From Late 1990s with Brass Base. Smoothed down on one side with a detailed image of two elephants in tall grass and bare trees adorning it. Large end covered in brass with a flat plate in order to make the tusk rest with the curve upright to display the image. 

Provenance: Acquired by the consignor's grandmother while on safari in Kenya in 1999, near Amboseli National Park. 

Condition: Good. 

Size: 8 x 3 x 1 in. 

Bone carving is creating art, tools, and other goods by carving animal bones, antlers, and horns. It can result in the ornamentation of a bone by engraving, painting or another technique, or the creation of a distinct formed object. As a carving material it is less hard than ivory, which allows for much finer detail, and is also less lustrous than ivory. The interior of bones are softer as well, so most uses are as thin plaques, rather than sculpture in the round. Bone carving has been practiced by a variety of world cultures over many millennia. In July 2021 scientists reported the discovery of a bone carving, one of the world’s oldest works of art, made by Neanderthals about 51,000 years ago. It was especially prevalent in prehistoric art, with notable figures like the Swimming Reindeer, made of antler, and many of the Venus figurines and fertility sculptures. The Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket is a whale bone casket imitating earlier ivory ones, and many  Medieval bone caskets were made by the Embriachi workshop of north Italy (c. 1375-1425), mostly using rows of thin plaques carved in relief. Flat bones were also routinely used by artists and craftsmen to try out their designs, especially by metalworkers. Such pieces are known as “trial-pieces.” Some of the most highly sought-after bone works by collectors are made from whalebone (baleen) and the normal skeletal whale bones, especially those turned into scrimshaw and by coastal villages in the Middle Ages.

#5669 . 

Good.