The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-02-08
IVORY AND ITS USES.
WHY CARVED ORNAMENTS IN IVORY
ARE VERY EXPENSIVE.

NnG SEHr
There Are Few Expert Workers I'm Ivory
in This Countrywide Price OF Elephants
Tusks Has Not Greatly Changed in Re
cent Years-A Costly Luxury.
When Whitelaw Reid was in search of
u workman to decorate apartments at
Ophir Farm with rich and beautiful an
tiques brought over from Europe he
found that there was but one man in
America who could do such work, and
he lay sick. Had Mr.. Reid been in search
of skilled ivory carvers he would have
found them almost as scarce. There are
not above three or four ivory carvers of
approved skill in New York, and hardly
so many in all the rest of the country.
The men who do such work are paid
high wages the year round, whether
busy or idle. They are F~renchmen, Ger
mans and Italians. Of the three the
Italians are perhaps the most skillful,
since ivory carving has been an art in a
high degree of perfection among the
Italians for centuries. The most famous
ivory carver living, however, is a French
man, Moreau Vauthier. Few of his
masterpieces have been seen in America,
though two were sold at the famous
Morgan art sale of a few years ago, and
two more, held at a great price, are now
in the possession Of a noted American
jeweler.
The ivory carvers of this country do
little or nothing in the East Indian or
japanese manner, nor do they occupy
themselves with figure work. Their chief
employment is in producing decorative
toilet and stationery articles. The rage
for stained and carved ivory is of recent
growth in the United States, and the de-
mand for such articles is not large, as
they are more costly than the same
articles in silver would be. They were
produced to tickle the jaded aesthetic
palates of the rich and luxurious, and
only those who may tri1e away what
they will indulge themselves to any
considerable degree in carved ivory.
In all such articles the cost Of the raw
material is small in comparison with
that of the labor. Billiard balls are
costly because they contain large guam
titles Of the finest ivory cut from the
best part of the tusk. The labor cost of
billiard balls is trif1ing, rs they are
turned by machinery and rapidly. Thus
it often happens that a single small arti-
Gle, richly stained and carved, will cost
five times as much as a billiard ball con-
tanning ten times the weight of ivory.
The carvers of ivory use much the same
tools as the wood carvers, but Of lighter
and more delicate make. The work is
extremely tedious and laborious.
The carving is usually done in low re-
lief, and the subjects are such as are
suitable to this treatment-Persian de-
signs in delicate curves, the cactus, with
some varieties of palm, and hints caught
from those maryelously simple but ar
tistic carvings of the Alaskan Indians.
The ivory is stained slightly, SO as to
bring out the design, and is permitted to
absorb moisture, which it readily does,
in order to give it that fresh look COM
mon in newly manufactured articles Of
ivory. The art of staining ivory is a
secret guarded we'll by the carvers.
Some notion of the cost of ivory cary
ing may be had from the fact that, while
a hand mirror framed in plain ivory may
be had for ten or twelve dollars, a mir
ror in carved ivory may cost 800 or
more. The small articles in carved
ivory cost from five to twenty-five dol
lars, and a toilet set in that material
may fetch as high as $500. The Ameri-
can climate, with its extremes of heat
and cold, is very trying upon ivory, and
ivory backed mirrors of European manu-
facture almost invariably crack across
the back after a few months of use upon
this side of the Atlantic. The American
manufacturers have hit upon the expe-
dent of leaving a space between glass
and frame in order to allow for contrac-
ton and expansion.
Nearly all the ivory brought to the
United States is bought in the great Lon
don market, where the price is knocked
about by bulls and bears, who corner
ivory as they corner wheat or corn. The
African rather than the Asiatic ivory is
brought to this country, though n of
, the largest tusks ever seen in this mar
ket-that of q sacred East Indian ele-
phant-has just been mounted in orlen-
tai style as a trophy Of the chase. The
tusk measures more than six feet IN
length and retains the marks it bore when
worn by the sacred beast to which it be
longed. Thanks to the predatory and
murderous industry of Tippu lib and
his black Zanzibaris the supply of ivory
has kept pace with the increased demand
resulting from it's extended use in this
country, and the price fo- the raw ma
terial has not permanently advanced.
Few tusks of more than five feet in
length come to this country, and many
) are less than four feet long. Many of
the tusks reach here after having been
buried in Africa for years to save them
from thievish enemies Of the savage
owners. Every tusk must go through a
! process of seasoning, long or short, &C
cording as the process is natural or arti-