Wounaan Embera White Tagua Turtle Carving-Panama 15100930L

Folks, This is one of about a dozen white or natural tagua carvings I am going to upload today. Tagua is commonly referred to as vegetable ivory. And for good reason, it look just like it. But the best news is it comes from a renewable nut that grows on a palm.

The nuts are about the size of a child's fist. The artists usually paint the carvings with fine india inks but I get a number of calls for the natural carvings so here we go.

This one is a Turtle carving. This carving exhibits the brown inclusion found in tagua. This is a change in color as the the tagua nut begins to decay. But once the nut is carved the decay stops and leaves a beautiful color change.

This is a particularly good carving.