Finely Carved Inuit Green Serpentine Stone Polar Bear (Henry Evaluardjuk?) Japanese book and nice row of nails

and nice row of nails showing through at either end of the black painted roof

If balanced he will sit on his own

Sewn onto the linen at lower left is a piece of ruled paper signed by an Emma Merkesell

this one I believe a seal with front flippers raised

from the slightly drooping rose at its center to the buoyant lilac that you can just about smell

Finely Carved Inuit Green Serpentine Stone Polar Bear (Henry Evaluardjuk?) Japanese book and nice row of nailsI purchased this one at Rhinebeck from a dealer who found it in an antiques shop in Florida and knew nothing about it. I look at a fair number of Inuit stone carvings, but rarely come across one in this glorious serpentine green stone, which looks like a sort of mottled Jade, and here, polished to a high finish, is just gorgeous. Unsigned, but I have some notion it may be the work of Henry Evaluardjuk (1923 2007), Iqaluit, of Frobisher Bay, Canada