Stag Head Bookends

This pair of silver-coloured stag's head bookends add a striking touch to any bookcase.

Solidly made in aluminium, they are an unusual reminder of the woodland scenes often depicted by the Italian painter Titian, who dominated 16th century Venetian art with his portraits, religious works and mythological scenes. Animals were captured with the same meticulous detail as the human and divine subjects of his paintings.

In 1553, Titian started painting a series of pictures for Philip II of Spain. He used Ovid’s poetic Metamorphoses as inspiration, telling how the hunter Actaeon discovered the goddess Diana and was transformed into a stag.