Basically it's a wooden dragon-type thing I bought recently after having had my eye on it for a while. It appears to be hand-carved out of light-weight and fibrous wood, but due to its size it's still pretty hefty.
It seems that the body was carved separate from the other parts (legs and wings).
The bottom is hollowed out and there are holes through it that appear to be eye holes, but they actually line up with the mouth of a "face" that is carved into the back of the beast. Due to that I thought it might be a mask of some sort, but it's pretty heavy to be a mask and I think it was hollowed out just to be more lightweight.
It's about 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet high.
A number of repairs, a toe and a couple teeth missing, but I like that it's seen its share of trouble.
A friend who designs museum books said it reminded him of something Indonesian or Balinese but not quite, and said he thought it was more of a folk-art representation of something along those lines but he wasn't really sure.
I paid $110 for it and I really like it so that was a fair price for me - I'm not as much interested in what it's worth as I am in knowing if anyone has any idea what it is - origins, or maybe leads for me to investigate.
Antique/The Zither was kept in original box in attic. Paint now has crackle look because of a heat factor. Has tuning key, original instruction book which is also in german. Has 3 song cards and an orginal thumb pick. And I would bet that it has its original strings because it was never played after my mother got it.
due to unknown age, drawers are a lil bit fragile to open, but we use it daily. back left leg is broken, but nailed in. Top two drawers are handy and cute.
