Most of my professional projects involve only the exterior of buildings. So when I get the chance to document a house on the outside and inside, I’m in a tizzy – but also overwhelmed! Floorplans are easy, and help tell how people used the building – how they got from the front door, say, to the kitchen, and what rooms were the most important.
Interior “finish” – like the woodwork, trim, mantles – provide clues as to the status of certain parts of the house. By the late 19th century, most of the wooden ornament you see on houses (whether on the exterior or interior) was machine made and purchased from local lumberyards or catalogs. But that doesn’t mean the craftsmanship wasn’t top-notch, or that stock pieces weren’t unique or…confusing.
What on earth is this beast?
A few minutes ago I was scratching my head over the figure in the middle of the over mantle pictured above. Is it a monkey? A stylized lion? A Green Man?
So I thought I would take a poll…what do you think?
Though cobweb clad, it’s a striking feature – and unlike anything else in the circa 1903-1905 house.
I can’t guess what that figure might represent but wonder if it is carved or a metal decoration.My experience restoring a very old mantel from layers and layers of paint surprised me when I found lead had been used to create much of the decoration under all that paint.
Interesting! I *think* is it wood, but it was hard to see under the grime.
Grotesque faces often used for fountains or the end of chair armrests were popular in Roman times and their revival in various centuries since.
I suppose I could just use a vague phrase like a “stylized grotesque figure” – but I am so curious as to what it was intended to be!
I have some information for you about the builder for the Wakefield Company and his 1925 home in the Highlands in Louisville. How to I send it to you?
Oh, how wonderful! You can email it to: gardens2gables@gmail.com
And thank you!
I think it’s a monkey, but why would a monkey, and an aggressive one at that, be a pleasure to have over your mantel? Strange. Keep away evil spirits?
I know! Not exactly what I want to see when I relax at the end of the day…
Looks like a fanciful, menacing garden sprite, with vaguely feline features.
Maybe a reference to a work of literature?
Puck, from Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to mind, but he was always depicted with a benevolent expression.
A gargoyle or the head of a griffin
I’m going for baboon and an angry one!!
I think he has a lot to be angry about, don’t you?
It’s a “Green Man”. Probably symbolizes that the owner was a Freemason or Knights Templar. There is quite a bit of information on the Green Man online. I have a number of photos of Him in Europe. He also appears in a painted ceiling in the old State War and Navy building in DC – now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Fascinating! I want it to be a Green Man, simply because I love England so much (and have many photos of depictions of the Green Man from my travels across the pond) – but I didn’t know about the Freemasonry connection! Thanks Tom!
I believe Tom is right. There is a tile in the back of the stagecraft section backstage at the Guignol Theatre. I have a similar casting of the Leaf Man or Green Man that my friend Georgen Coyle sent me from Newcomb College at Tulane.
Can’t see it well but it might be a devil.
Have seen two other strange looking faces before.
I vote for lion mostly because it is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous symbols from art and architecture.
Looks like an angry baboon to me, although the hair does appear rather leaf-like. Google search for picture of a baboon face and you will easily see the strong resemblance. That dog-like snout is right on. Why on earth, though, would that image appear on a Kentucky mantelpiece?
It looks like a Green Man, with the leaves on the sides of his face. I wonder what the original paint colors were?
Typical “Northwind” face.