Ivory hilted barong with dragon theme

[RSWORD]

When I was flipping through this art museum booklet looking for pictures of another item, I ran across a very interesting Barong and thought I would share the picture. It is an ivory hilted Barong with a detailed dragon carved into it.
Too bad this one is not in any of our collections.

[tom hyle]

Nice. Would this be a piece by/for an ethnic Chinese in Moroland? I saw these two gate-dragons in an African art store, and they looked very Chinese to me, too though, but on close examination the work looked African....

[Conogre]

Superb...I've been interested in dragons for well over 40 years, and surprisingly, they are found in almost every culture, even those with nothing vaguely similar existing/ known to have existed within boundries known to have been explored, similar to the were-animal myth.
As to owning a sword like this? Whew!!!
A friend even custom made a spear for me with a dragon for the blade scabbard, which is beautiful but can't compare to this in artistry!**grin/wink**
Mike