Wounaan Indian Dyed Frog Tagua Carving-Panama 20112103L

Here’s a carving that shows a technique that became popular in the early 1990’s. Some creative tagua carver took the chance and dropped a white carving in a dye concoction his wife or sister cooked up for basket fiber. In this case it was a cocobolo wood chip concoction. And the result was outstanding. Tagua is essentially wood or wood-like so the dye took and changed the color of the carving. I’ve done this myself to test the process. It works well and the end result is beautiful after polishing the carving well. This is a really good example.

Every tagua carving is a one-of-a-kind treasure.