What a lot of careful folding went into the creation of this very wonderful paper snake, Japanese (Mingei essentially means 'folk art' in Japanese) and dating to the early 20th century I believe. I've only found one other of these out there, near identical in manner though somewhat larger than this one, sold via 1st Dibs; that one was housed in its original wooden crate, with hand-painted paper label, which helped in the dating of this one. It appears that the handmade paper was painted first, in rich shades of light and dark blue ink, then folded, with the color showing on the top side and the natural gray unpainted paper on the underside. Plus red paper for the inside of the mouth, yellow glass beads for eyes, and a twisted tail, which makes it seem all the more slithery!

24" long as it sits (will stretch longer than that!) Very good condition.