Monumental Cobblers Boot Trade Sign

Circa 1720 Large Early 18thC Italian Oak & Polychrome Carved Statue of a Bishop / Saint. Flat back with a secret panel which would have been used to hide gold. An exceptional exam...

Circa 1950 Monumental Ebonised French Empire Revival Marble Sideboard, Rosewood Veneer with Brass columns Excellent Quality & Colour With keys sk...

English Victorian red & blue painted and decorated wood carved shoemaker's boot sign.     

A large carved and polychrome painted tobacconist's figure almost certainly 17th or early 18th century For a related example see Edward H. Pinto, Treen and other Wooden Bygones, Bell and Hyman, London 1969. Page 412, plate 436. Originally this may well have been a tobacconist's shop window figure. For a similar, but slightly earlier unpainted example, see Sotheby's, The W. J. Shepherd collection of treen, 30th November 1983, Lot 393, illustrated in Pinto "Wooden Bygones of Smoking and Snuff Taking", plate 1. Carved wooden figures, often painted, were placed outside tobacconist's shops as signs from the 17th century onwards. The earliest of these figures is the 'black boy' or 'blackamoor'. 'At the sign of the black boy' or 'at the sign of the blackamoor' was a popular address for tobacconists since the early 17th century. The 17th century figures...