Glazed Ceramic Elephant Head Wall Bracket

A glazed ceramic wall bracket or console shelf, modelled in high relief in the form of an African elephant's head. The upper tier presents a semi-circular shelf finished with a bold band of circular cabochon bead moulding, designed to carry a bust, clock, or mantle garniture. Beneath, the elephant is cast with flared ears, deeply corrugated brow and trunk, and prominent down-turned tusks flanking the centre.

Slip-cast in earthenware and coated in a thick, uniform opaque white glaze, the piece belongs to the tradition of decorative zoological ceramics popularized throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century. While the motif descends from nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian and colonial exhibition ware, the crisp white monochrome finish reflects the Italian and Iberian decorative output of the 1970s, where traditional naturalistic modelling was rendered in clean, graphic white earthenware for interior consoles and brackets.