These bronze statues of late leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il were created by artists from Mansudae Art Studio. The studio was created in 1959 by Kim Il Sung. It has generated an estimated 38,000 statues and 170,000 other monuments for domestic use.

PYONGYANG, North Korea — With somewhere around 4,000 artists and staff, the Mansudae Art Studio, a huge complex of nondescript concrete buildings on a sprawling, walled-off campus with armed guards in the heart of Pyongyang, churns out everything from watercolor tigers to giant mosaics.

But its statues — the really big, bronze, monumental ones on foreign shores — are what appear to have caught the attention of the U.N. Security Council.

In one of the odder items on the list of things North Korea can’t export under United Nations’ sanctions, statues were explicitly listed for the first time last month when the Security Council approved a raft of punishments in response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, which it conducted in September.

To those familiar with the North’s exports, the move to ban statue sales wasn’t entirely a surprise. It’s one of the few things other than coal and natural resources, exports of which were also heavily restricted under the new sanctions, that North Korea can still find a market for abroad.

Moreover, sanctions advocates and proponents of isolating Pyongyang for its nuclear program believe Mansudae, and particularly its export arm, Mansudae Overseas Projects, is being used to quietly maintain, expand or obfuscate the nature of its relations with other countries.

Africa has traditionally been Mansudae’s prime export market — it’s sold to 17 African countries, ranging from Angola to Zimbabwe.

The U.N. statue sanctions won’t likely hurt North Korea’s coffers much.

The North’s total income from selling statues abroad has been estimated at about $160 million, or only about $10 million a year. That’s compared with the estimated impact of the new restrictions on coal exports, which the U.S. has said could cost Pyongyang as much as $700 million.

Even so, it’s a slap at one of North Korea’s most venerable cultural institutions.

Mansudae was created in 1959 by Kim Il Sung himself. It has generated an estimated 38,000 statues and 170,000 other monuments for domestic use.

“The vast majority of the major art works of the country have been realized by Mansudae Art Studio artists,” according to the website of its overseas representative office.