Hand-Carved Wood Monk Bookends, Pair, Reading Friars with Rosary, Folk Art Carving

Long before the printing press, it was monks who copied, illuminated, and safeguarded the books of Europe, bent over their pages in candlelit scriptoria. These bookends bring that history into your home. Each figure is a hooded friar lost in quiet study, an open book cradled in carved hands, with a long rosary and cross falling down the front of his habit. The carving has a wonderful folk art directness: deep, confident cuts shape the hollowed eyes, the forked beard, and the heavy fall of the robes, while a rich brown finish brings out the grain of the wood. The pair reads as much as devotional sculpture as it does as bookends, bringing a monastic calm to a shelf, desk, or study. From the estate of a well-traveled collector with ties to New York, London, and Europe.

Dimensions (each): 5.25" L x 4.75" W x 11.5" H