Tibetan repousse dragon

I have had this for a number of years,my son is in town for the holiday with his good camera and had him take a few photos. Copper repousse 7 inches long and 4.5 inches tall.

 

nice dragon....from the back i'd say it was cast...and not a hand pounded repousse.

 

I have a picture frame with my grandmother's photo that I know was from the 1900s-1920s. It has the same kind of wire stand so I'd say this dates from at least that era. Very nice. Your showing it up or down makes me think it could stand or hang up and that never occurred to me.

 

The dragon is repousse and not cast,photos can be decieving and age is only relative to the history of the piece.

 

if you say so....i'd still like to see some close ups of the back !

 

Being 3-dimensional with an indentation on the reverse is not the correct definition of repousse. Repousse means worked from the back, with the visible design on the front being "pushed out." When you look at the back of an item made with this technique you will see all the elements of the design "in reverse" so to speak. There is no evidence of that in the picture of the reverse you posted, Holly.

As just one example - the "horns" on the dragon's head only show up in the pic of the back where they extend beyond the "mane." If they had been made from the back, they would be visible all the way to the place where they start on the dragon's forehead.

 

Ya think? .........

 

You can search the web and see how many objects are just repousse ,you probably won't find any.The term is half the process to make the object and most descriptions of the objects leave out the "chasing" part which defines the repousse part.

The horns show a bit of perspective since you can't see the left side of the head,it doesn't exist.The horn on the right side of the head in the enlarged photo is a piece of split stock added for dimension.