🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Cinnabar bookends and box

[duffer04]

I have these two bookends and a 4 compartment box from my parents. They probably got them in the 1940s. Are they Chinese? What is their age? And what might their value be? What is the significance of the lady and the frog?
Thanks, B. L.

 

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[searcher]

Bottom of box looks a lot like Cinnabar colored carved wood(lacquered)
If they are actually Cinnabar be careful when handling.
Cinnabar is Mercury Sufide.
Have no idea on age.

Woman and toad could be referencing the Toad Boy stories from Northern China,

 

[Cariboo5]

Does look like cinnabar. The toad symbol in certain cultures represents rebirth (tadpole to toad - from water to land). Chinese viewed the toad as a lucky symbol and when a toad appears, good fortune may be on the way.