Hood ornament

  • Hood ornament
    Hood ornament
  • The Spirit of Ecstasy, nicknamed the Flying Lady or Silver Lady, has decorated Rolls-Royce cars since 1911. This figure is a brass reproduction. KOVELS.COM
    The Spirit of Ecstasy, nicknamed the Flying Lady or Silver Lady, has decorated Rolls-Royce cars since 1911. This figure is a brass reproduction. KOVELS.COM

    hood ornament from Rolls-Royce cars. In 1909, car enthusiast John Douglas-Scott-Montagu commissioned sculptor Charles Sykes to create a mascot for his Rolls-Royce.

    Sykes made a sculpture of a woman bent at the waist, leaning forward so her robe flows behind her like wings. The model was Eleanor Thornton, Montagu’s secretary and, secretly, lover.

    By 1911, Sykes’s sculpture was made the official Rolls…