602 - Monumental desk set with eagles, marble and brass, two inkwells, probably circa 1930

Monumental desk set with eagles, marble and brass, two inkwells, probably circa 1930 Marble and brass, monumental desk set, also desk garniture, with eagle decoration, probably circa 1930. Rectangular base plate of black marble with light and golden-yellow veining, at the front an elongated tray recess, in the centre a raised marble plinth with a large eagle figure with spread wings on a rock. At the sides two inkwells with glass inserts, black vessels with bulging rings and domed hinged lid with leaf decoration and knob, each surrounded by small bronze-coloured eagles with spread wings. Together with a marble blotter with a small eagle figure as handle. Condition commensurate with age, edges chipped, front left corner broken, glued, blotter chipped. 30x50x33 cm (HxWxD). In many cultures the eagle is regarded as a symbol of power: the Greeks saw it as the symbolic animal of Zeus, for the Romans it was the emblem of Jupiter and the standard of the legions. In the year 800 Charlemagne chose the eagle as the imperial heraldic animal; from Emperor Sigismund onwards, the double-headed eagle was regarded as the imperial and the single eagle as the royal emblem. The large eagle with spread wings on the rock takes up this pictorial tradition of strength and superiority, while the small eagles on the inkwells and the blotter repeat the motif. Desk sets stand for the bourgeois culture of writing, in which ink and pen as the predominant writing instruments were to be given a fitting character.