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Bronze Cross, Two Nude
Women
Collection of Gerald Gardner
This impressively large, 23 lb., bronze, one of a kind sculpture
was part of the collection of Gerald B. Gardner and was exhibited in his museum,
"the Witches Mill" on the Isle of Man. The contents of the museum were willed,
by Gerald, to his fourth and final High Priestess, Monique Wilson. Ms. Wilson
sold this and a number of other items to John Turner of Ripleys "Believe it or
Not" Museum before fleeing England to escape religious persecution. Turner later
moved the museum from England to St. Petersburg Florida and in 1985 sold the
cross to the occult writer Allen Greenfield.
The cross is pictured in Marshall Cavendish's Man, Myth and
Magic, Volume 4, with the caption:
"Below right, human bodies reappear in
this curious cross, once owned by Montague Summers, an
authority on Witchcraft and demonology: now in the Witches' Mill, Isle of
Man".
The inscription " M. Summers " does indeed, appear on the
lower edge of the base.
 
According to Turner, The cross was modeled
after two real life subjects who were posing for the creation of the cross for
the "Hellfire Club". Another picture of it appears in Doreen Valiente's "The
Rebirth of Witchcraft".
SOLD
May 2004
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