Antique Vietnamese Whimsical Carved Folk Art Water Puppet Rat. Carved wood rat with articulated appendages and head holding a fishing basket, with painted gilt mantle and yin-yang across back. 

Size: 5 1/4 x 4 x 9 1/2 in.

Vietnamese water puppets are carved wooden figures used in a traditional form of theater that has flourished in the river deltas of northern Vietnam for nearly a thousand years. Performances take place in waist-deep water, with puppeteers hidden behind a screen using long rods beneath the surface to animate farmers, legends, dragons, and mischievous spirits who skim, splash, or erupt from the pond like living folklore. The water isn’t just a stage—it’s an active element: it reflects lantern light, carries sound, and creates a kind of shimmering dream-world where stories of harvest, love, and village humor play out. The puppets themselves are charming, brightly painted, and almost buoyant in personality, and as collectibles they carry traces of that same rural theatrical magic, a reminder that art can grow directly out of landscape and community.

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