Inuit Carved Wood Sea Lion Bookends with Bared Teeth, a Pair carved decoy The "Anima Sola" pictured on

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

but also a bit of a passive aggressive one

In addition to illustrations

withome light smudges and toning and a small water stain to the upper right corner

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

Inuit Carved Wood Sea Lion Bookends with Bared Teeth, a Pair carved decoy The "Anima Sola" pictured onLove 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