Head of a Male Shinto Deity at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich

The square face of this deity shows closed eyes with wide overarching eyebrows. The full mouth is closed, and the short nose has flared nostrils. The hat/headdress feature shows a long hanging ponytail-like feature at the back, with raised arc-like elements that surmounts the head. The curvilinear ears are set well back. There is some damage to the back right hand side, and significant internal damage. The light-coloured wood clearly shows the grain of the wood, and there are traces of dark red lacquer. The face id smoothly carved, but evidence of carving masks can be seen on the back of the head. This head is almost certainly from a figure squatting in Japanese style on the floor. It is carved from a single block of wood and the back stll shows quite wide score marks from the chisel or adze. The makers of Shinto figures were rarely the professional craftsmen who made Buddhist sculpture, and their technique represents an early type of folk-tradition which continued to exist in more popular form in local sculpture up to the nineteenth century. This object is part of Scan The World. Scan the World is a non-profit initiative introduced by MyMiniFactory, through which we are creating a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks and landmarks from across the globe for the public to access for free. Scan the World is an open source, community effort, if you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email [e-mail] to find out how you can help.