Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.

Metal ANTIQUE BOOKENDS. Strange 1920s Vintage Aluminium Sphinx Pair of Bookends. Collectable Painted Art Deco Colours on wooden plinth.

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Iconic Edinburgh
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£125.00
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£125.00
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These are very strange little items and I have never really seen anything else quite like the - so probably items for the collector of quirky Egyptian items.

Stylistically I am dating these to the 1920s / 1930s when the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb sparked off a mania for all things Egyptian.

I would imagine that these would have been made as early 20th-century souvenir pieces for tourists coming to see the site of the excavation and the new Museum at Cairo which was packed with antiquities.

These wee fellows are certainly very odd- and possibly now quite unique items.

They are made of cast aluminium and created in two moulded sections with a joining seam running along the back of each sphinx.

They are screwed firmly down onto an old wooden base - which is in good condition.

The charm for these unusual little models is really the naive quality of the modelling and the materials used - they are very crude in form and colouring (but this is what makes them so completely appealing).

And I might suspect that they might have been made in Egypt but a native craftsman rather than modelled and cast in Europe.

The main body colours are a sandstone or honey colour. The headdresses are red and they have the cutest of wee faces - all the paintwork appears to be original to the bookends.

Condition: as shown in my photographs (more can be supplied for serious interest).

One seems to have been handled a little more and has more areas of rubbing and losses to the paint - commensurate with age and use. The other is brighter with less rubbing - but this is to me just all fine and reveals their age and it is all natural patination.

They are really very interesting historical items - and to be fair, the more that I look at them as I am writing this description - the fonder I am getting off them - think that I might put on display at home until they are "adopted".

Each sphinx is 7 1/4 inches in length, have a height of 4 1/4 inches, and a width of 3 3/4 inches.

The pair weight 1.6 kg - might be a bit tricky to send outside of the UK... but please ask for a postage quote and I will see what I can do.

Hopefully a fair price for these cuties - I think that they are very rare survivors - never seen others quite like them.

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