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This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Multicoloured rice flour paste figure of the deity monkey, with right leg lifted, left hand over brow, with staff behind back. Staff is 17.5cm. Long, and is paste over bamboo stick. Figure is mounted on a bamboo stick which is embellished with two rice flour paste flowers.

History Of Use

This figure is intended to be used as a child's toy or household ornament, not as an object of worship (collector).

Iconographic Meaning

Monkey (great sage equal to heaven) is customarily shown in this pose, staff in hand, depicting him on his travels to India to bring the Buddhist scriptures back to China.

Cultural Context

used primarily by children

Narrative

The maker was a very elderly man who made and sold these figures while sitting at the side of a road in Tsuen Wan. He always attracted a large audience of interested people. The artist said that he received his training in Shandong Province, which is in northeast China. There is a photograph of him at work in the documentation file for accession 328 at the Museum of Anthropology.

Specific Techniques

Hand-formed by shaping, rolling, incising, and combing the malleable paste, while selecting the various colours as needed and then adhering the finished shapes to each other and to the bamboo stick that supported the figure and served as a handle. The only tools used were a piece of bamboo and a broken comb.

Item History

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