Can Anyone translate this for me please

[Chiefish]

Hi I have some anitque ivory carvings and i need help in translating the marks on them. They are true works of art made by what I believe to be true Chinese craftsman a long time ago. Any help is appreciated.

[Chiefish]

My wifes grandmaother has left us a bunch of antique Chinese art, in many forms. Some of it is ivory like the above post mentions and some of it is other stuff. The first four pictures above are from ivory carvings and the last wooden picture is of a beautiful porclain and rosewood table tile. We will be unpacking more of it in the near fuuture and I would be more than happy to post pictures of the items themselves if anyone is interested in them .I must say they are all works of art especialy to my untrained eyes. Here is a picture of the table panel i mention. And a couple of the ivory carvings. again thanks for info you guys can give me on the marking on them.

[semantic nuance]

My take ,from left to righ, is 乾隆, 乾隆, 清大. The last word is not clear.

Edited January 20, 2010 at 01:48 AM by semantic nuance

[Chiefish]

I have found that this charicture 大 means great or the great one i think, do you know what the one to the left of it means, I would guess it must be a name of an emperor or person of stature.

[CrisPal]

hehe,it is not 清大，while it is 大清 that means the great Qing dynasty.for eg,大清乾隆年制

[CrisPal]

None of them is true ancient Chinese art work!

[Chiefish]

Any idea when and where they were made then, or were they just stuff made for tourists that were visiting China, or were they not even made in China? They are at least real ivory from the tests I have conducted on them, and I like them either way .

[renzhe]

乾隆 is Emperor Qianlong and 大清 stands for the Qing dynasty. Along with his grandfather Kangxi, Qianlong he was the most revered emperor of the Qing dynasty.

And respect to semantic nuance for deciphering that.

[Chiefish]

Many Thanks to all that have responded, it has given me clues to my mystery.