Oriental Lion, The World’s Largest Redwood Sculpture, Took 20 People Three Years to Complete
Photo by Welcomia/Shutterstock.com
The world’s largest redwood sculpture is now on display in the Fortune Plaza Times square in Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei Province in China. Oriental Lion was carved in Myanmar over the course of three years (!) by a 20-person team led by Dengding Rui Yao, and then traveled more than 3000 miles to its current resting place.
The creators traced quite a bit of detail into the nearly 50-foot-long sculpture, while also providing a stylish display for the tree’s natural knots. The folks at MyModernMet speculate that the original tree was a Metasequoia, but all we really know is that it was a tree big enough for the record books—47.5 feet long, 16.5 feet high and 13 feet wide, to be exact.
That said, a Google search for “large redwood sculptures” doesn’t really turn up that much competition for the Lion—making said sculptures, after all, involves cutting down humongous trees and retooling them. According to Yelp, you can find a nice and large redwood sculpture of Bigfoot in Garberville, Calif., however. So there is that.
Check out some photos of Oriental Lion below, and see a video of it being transported on a truck (via Reddit) here.
The world’s largest redwood sculpture from China, a giant lion carved from a single tree by 20 people over 3 Years #artpic.twitter.com/YctLGCP9v4
— sobore (@sobore) May 11, 2017