MATERIAL: Tagua Seed.
TAGUA, also called “ivory nut” or “vegetable ivory”, is the seed of several kinds of palms that grow in tropical rainforests. The durability of tagua and its similarity to animal ivory has been known for a long time. Before tagua was displaced by plastics in the 1930´s tropical countries exported large quantities of tagua in the U.S. and Europe for making buttons and jewellery. Tagua buttons are still used by European and Japanese fashion designers.
The artisans crave the tagua with hand tools and polish the tagua with a series of fine abrasives: no varnishes or lacquers are used.
The natural colour of tagua is ivory white with a dark brown skin. Natural inclusions are shades of brown and gray. Other colors are produced by dyeing the tagua with natural extracts of plants and earth, using the traditional methods for dyeing basket fibers. Only high quality India inks are used on those pieces with inked details.
Height: 6cm
Width: 4cm
Lenght: 5.5cm
