Trappaalbekroning van ebbenhout met o.a. vier paar muizen versierd 1920

Here's a curious object carved in ebony wood by Lambertus Zijl, featuring mice. Can you see them? I'm wondering about the making of this piece. What was Zijl thinking, what were his ambitions? The wood seems very hard, so I imagine that the carving has been done with considerable force, cutting away at the wood, following the grain. There's a very tactile quality to the surface, with a complex range of indentations and facets. The sphere on top seems almost too heavy for the mice below, which seem to act as its cushion. The more I look at this, the more I realize that artists, like Zijl, and the rest of us too, are always looking for an ideal form, and for ways to express their vision. And even if they're using something as solid and resistant as ebony, they still manage to do it. Art, like life, is a continuous process of discovery and innovation.