This is one of many, many little scrimshandered pendants I made in the early part of my art fair career. I bought (what I recall being) 3 pounds of fossilized walrus ivory scraps, though such a huge amount seems incredible now. At any rate, I had a lot of it. I would fit the drawing to the shape of the piece, and cats like this one, along with dragons, were my best sellers.

I wholesaled a goodly portion of my ‘cat art’ to a woman named Harriet, who had a cat toys business; she marketed her wares at cat shows. It was making products for her that caused me to purchase several books on cats, especially purebreds; and according to her the persians were by far the most popular. I spent hours of my childhood memorizing horse and particularly dog breeds, so I was perfectly willing to pore over pictures of purebred felines, and read up on their coat genetics.

persian cat17x32x3mm Lampblack ink on walrus ivory. Tungsten carbide tipped tool. Late 80s?

To be frank, this is not a particularly strong piece, particularly in the face—it's just one of a handful that never sold. But it takes great strength of hand to do this work, and I doubt very much I could make such a pendant even this well today, at least not without some serious ramping up (and hand exercise...)

photo, and 1st version of post 14jan10; combined texts from both, 27apr14 (the original, 1664 got lost from lack of tagging. Le sigh.)

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.