Ethnographic ritual short staff constructed from natural mat...

Hammer

£55

Ethnographic ritual short staff constructed from natural materials including a large snailshell finial, the ebonised shaft wrapped in snakeskin and decorated with fish skin, fur, bone fragments and nuts, moulded with two face masks with painted eyes and open mouths holding piranha teeth, 48cm long

Provenance:  Hicks Beach Estate.  The majority of pieces in this collection originate from Williamstrip, Coln St Aldwyn, family seat from 1788 to 2008 and thereafter Mill House, Coln St Aldwyn.  Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Bt, succeeded his father as 9th Baronet of Beverston in 1854.  He became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1864 and served twice as Chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1885 to 1886 and again from 1895 to 1902.  In 1906 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount St Aldwyn and in 1915 became the first Earl St Aldwyn.