Ivory ball

Chinese carved ivory is amazing as regards its finishing, workmanship and good taste. The Chinese sometimes make enormous balls, with twenty or more fitting inside each other, and all so delicately carved that they could be compared to fine lace, decorated with flowers, latticework and other characteristic ornaments, the outcome of amazing patience and adroitness – Stanisław Kostka Potocki wrote in his study on Chinese art (O Sztuce u Chińczyków). Similar balls were produced at the turn of the eighteenth century and later in Canton, and are an excellent example of objects from a cabinet de curiosité, which displayed, alongside works of art, assorted curios and exotica: natural specimen, precious stones, boxes, gold artefacts, porcelain or glass objects. Such cabinets of curiosities were the predecessors of present-day museums.