Chinese Carved Wood Handle Type Thing

[diggummup]

Any ideas on this thing? It's a solid piece of wood. It's carved in relief. It's 5 5/8" long, 1 1/2" wide x 3/4" thick oval shaped. Appears to have a little age to it if you look at the close ups. Though the colors used to paint it don't appear to be something that would have been used more than 50 years ago or so, much less the illustration depicted. I may be wrong, just a guess. Has some writing on one end as well as on the piece itself. I was thinking maybe a calligraphy paperweight but I have yet to find one without at least one side that was flat. Here's the pics-

[stefen]

Wrist rest... used for calligraphy applications...

[diggummup]

Wrist rest... used for calligraphy applications...

Looks like you may have it. I'll mark this solved after a little research. Thanks.

[Yang Hao]

I know this was solved however I have some more info on the item you might be interested in. This info makes it more than just a wrist rest :-). The sides of it read 徽州绩溪墨厂 which means huizhou jixi mo chang. huizhou is a prefecture in China jixi is a county in huizhou and mo means ink chang means factory.

The boy on it is very special he is a powerful boy god, protection deity in buddhism call Nata. In chinese nezha 哪吒。I've seen cartoons and books of this boy and he can kick A**. The tittle is 哪吒闸海 nezha zha hai "Nata dams up the sea". It’s one of his stories. This item is geared towards kids learning chinese calligraphy. Much like an american kid would get pencils or pens with a videogame character on them.

I would say this item is older because it uses the traditional character for chang (factory) so it may have been produced before the change to simplified characters. pre 1950s. I would guess if that was the case it was made 1900-1920.

[diggummup]

Welcome to Treasurenet. I saw one of your posts yesterday. It's good to have someone who can translate Chinese. Thank you for this added information. I actually had this piece out to sell at my yard sale a few months ago. It didn't sell, I almost put it in with the leftovers I was going to donate. Instead, I put it in my keep box because I like it. Now that you have given me this information, I'm glad I did.

Just did a little research. You don't think this is an animated representation of him from the movie "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King", do you? This is the closest depiction of him I can find, that is near mine. Are there any depictions of him from the early 20th century that look close to this one? He looks very animated.

[Yang Hao]

I based that guess on the fact the word 厂 chang was written in traditional characters and not simplified. After I wrote my observation I started considering the fact the item could have been geared for Hong Kong or Taiwan so therefore the manufacture could have decided to use traditional characters and not simplified. If that is the case then the item date could be post 1950s. Again it's a guess by the characters. One way to find out is to see if the ink factory has any historical information available.