THREE-EYED SKULL – Handmade Japanese Yokai Effigy, Graphite, The Unsleeping

£55.00

A small solid-clay effigy with three domed eyes and a snouted muzzle, finished in dark graphite with a pewter sheen on the high points. Hand-built and one of a kind, 11 x 8 x 6cm, freestanding. An oddity for the shelf or desk.

1 in stock

Description

This three eyed skull clay sculpture is a one of a kind effigy hand-built in a dark graphite finish. A heavy, snouted cranium stares out from three raised eyes, the metallic grey surface catching light across a rough, gritty skin.

The graphite pigment sits heavy in the coarse texture of the cranium and lifts to a brighter pewter sheen on the three domed eyes and the high ridges of the skull. Worked from solid air-dry clay, the piece measures 11 x 8 x 6cm and stands freestanding on a shelf or desk with no base needed. Every mark across the gritty surface is hand-worked, so this handmade sculpture holds the light differently from each angle. An artist’s stamp is pressed into the clay low on the front. As a collector’s piece it sits as a freestanding display object, a strange three eyed skull that pulls a second look.

In the collection’s telling, this skull is cast as a watcher of the threshold between sleep and waking. It keeps one eye open at all times and never closes all three together, so that nothing crosses unseen. The old stories set it at the edges of graves and in quiet rooms after dark, reading what two eyes would miss. Its graphite skin is said to darken where it has watched longest.

A one of a kind effigy that carries a quiet, watchful strangeness onto any shelf it sits on.

Size Chart

Width: 11cm / Height: 8cm / Depth: 6cm