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Subject:Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Kay dee Mon, Nov 14, 2022 IP: 85.76.100.51

Can anyone translate these two characters carved into the back of a wooden Chinese mask for me please?



Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Bill H Tue, Nov 15, 2022

Appears to read right to left as "Precious Treasure" (ri bao - 日宝).

Best regards,

Bill H.

Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Kay Dee Wed, Nov 16, 2022

Thanks again Bill! Given it reads right to left, could it be Japanese script? The Chinese don't write right to left do they?

Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Bill H Wed, Nov 16, 2022

Since Chinese script was simplified in the post 1949 PRC era, much of it has been printed in western style from left to right. Before that time it was written right to left, often in stacks. The variants "宝", 寚" and the standard character 寶 were all used by artists in China before the PRC simplified the system and are all three found in the 1943 edition of the Matthews Chinese-English Dictionary as well as the Great Chinese-Japanese Dictionary published in 1943 by famed Sino-Japanese linguist Tetsuji Morohashi (4 Jun 1883 – 8 Dec 1982). Before my first reply to you, I'd considered whether use of the "ri"/日 character had any Japanese connotations, but without images showing whether the carver's techniques revealed more of the Japanese style than Chinese I had nothing to on which to base such an opinion.

Bill H.

Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Kay Dee Thu, Nov 17, 2022

Here is the mask. Up till several years ago it had been in the one family's hands since sometime in the later half of the 1940's.




Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Bill H Fri, Nov 18, 2022

Probably Chinese, as the eyes have that wide-awake serious quality I've seen in other Chinese decorative carvings of their legendary scholars and military figures. Not sure of which one is represented here
perhaps Guan Di aka Guan Yu. See image of full-body carving below.

Bill H.



Subject:Re: Help with small character translation on wood please
Posted By: Kay Dee Thu, Nov 24, 2022

Pardon delay in response but have been off-line now for over a week so........... a rather late THANKYOU Bill for all your input!

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