W300xH450mm, China

The head, feet and hands of the glove puppet is made of wood and its body and arms in a fabric formed glove.  For the right hand control puppet, with the whole hand in the glove, the thumb would go into the left arm of the puppet, the index finger in the head and the remaining 3 fingers in the right arm of the puppet.  As the puppet is directly control by the hand, fine mechanism can be built into the head for the control of the eye, the mouth etc.  As in all theatre, the characters of the glove puppet show can be classified into 7 category and each with its many subtypes;  the Sheng (male role), the Dan (female role), the Jing (the painted face strong character), the Chou (clown), the Xian (saint), the Guai (monster).

The puppet here is of the saint category,  Ling Guan, he is a Taoist saint who used to be bad temple god who would eat children for a meal.  A powerful wizard tamed him with a flying fire charm and set his eyes on fire.  Ling Guan was upset and filed a complaint to the Jade Emperor who compensated him with a golden whip and a third eye of wisdom, he was also allowed to follow wizard and take his revenge if he found the wizard doing a bad deed.  12 years he followed the wizard and the wizard only do good and no wrong, Ling Guan was moved, instead of hoping for his revenge he became a disciple of the wizard.

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