Marble Elephant Obelisks – Grand Tour Pair

This pair of marble elephant sculptures carries a slender obelisk on each back, the white, grey-veined marble of the animals set against the warm, wood-grained figure of the woodstone obelisks. A saddle cloth in gold leaf and a row of gold spheres sit beneath the foot of each obelisk. The motif goes back to the Elefantino by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the small elephant bearing an Egyptian obelisk that was unveiled in Rome's Piazza della Minerva in 1667 for Pope Alexander VII. Its inscription reads the pairing as an emblem: it takes a strong mind to carry solid wisdom – the elephant as strength, the obelisk as the learning of ancient Egypt. Both elephants are carved by hand and stand on moulded, stepped plinths of the same woodstone, so small differences left by the chisel are part of the pair. Pale marble, veined stone and gold leaf place them in the Grand Tour tradition of polished Italian marbles. At 80 cm high the two have the presence to flank a doorway or a chimney breast on matching pedestals, the obelisks rising in step as a symmetrical frame.