Inuit Carved Wood Sea Lion Bookends with Bared Teeth, a Pair carved decoy wood is 13/16” thick

wood is 13/16” thick

this might be a good whimsy to gift a a much beloved child

The "Anima Sola" pictured on this 1903 ex voto retablo is about as existential feeling as they come---while most representations of the Anima Sola show the figure (sometime male

which appears to have been mailed from Vienna to Davos-Platz in Switzerland in 1907

or tightrope walker

Inuit Carved Wood Sea Lion Bookends with Bared Teeth, a Pair carved decoy wood is 13/16” thickLove at first sight with these two, which I believe are Inuit, probably Alaskan, and I'd guess 1940s or so. The mounting of the the carved sea lions (I am pretty sure sea lions rather than seals) to bookend type platforms seems a bit of an afterthought (they're not heavy enough to be very effective bookends, and the nails attaching the carvings to their platforms have some wiggle) but what marvelous and very charming creatures, most especially the