Not sure what made me notice this, but for a small house this one has an awful lot of animals in it. Never mind the pictures, we'd be here for weeks, and I've found the occasional gecko, the odd bee and (ew) the intermittent rodent; but here is the total of animal toys, dolls and figurines made of stone, china, terracotta, metal, plastic, cloth or wood:
bears (2)
cats (6, or 8 if you count the real ones)
dog
dragon
ducks (2)
elephant
gecko
goat
hare
horse
koala
leopard
monkey
owl
ox
parrot
pig
rat
rhino
rooster
seal
snakes (3)
tiger
wren
Sharp-eyed readers might have picked out the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac there: that's a set of little 'opium weights' in the shape of each critter, made of bronze, that I bought in Bangkok. One of those is a snake; the other two snakes are a tiny coiled rose quartz one, and a metre-long articulated one made of wooden discs, a bit like a slinky, brightly painted, that lives on the top shelf of the cookbook bookcase, sneaking up on the two smallest wooden cats. The gecko, made of birdseed-filled cloth and therefore very sinuous, is charmingly sewn in witty detail, a bright poison-acid green with a red mouth and sequins. The little seal is carved out of malachite, four of the birds are terracotta figurines from San Gimignano, and the leopard is a fancy-dress mask.
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