Checklist: Carvings

Dennis Rickard

The first section of this listing deals with some CAS carvings, and was compiled and described by Smith for The Arkham Sampler (Winter, 1948 - pages 43 to 48), entitled "Checklist: The Carvings of Clark Ashton Smith." Most of the carvings were already in private collections at the time of this compilation, but readers were invited to write Smith in Auburn for a list of available carvings and their prices. A few additional comments beyond what Smith wrote are included in parentheses.

Desert Amphibian - Head in hard talc. Monster with blunt horns and alligator muzzle.

Pan - Head in mottled talc.

Black Pan - Head in fire - black porphyry. The god of panic fright.

Chaugnar's Cousin - Head in fire - black talc. Monster with trunk, related to Chaugnar Faugn. (From the novel by Frank Belknap Long).

Blue Goddess - Head in bluish- grey. Exotic- featured girl with hood. (One in a group photograph in Lovecraft's Selected Letters II).

The Goblin - Head in talc. Elfin - featured being with fluted throat.

The Goblin - Head in reddish porphyry. Somewhat more sinister than the previous figure of the same name. "Le rouge lutin" of Baudelaire's sonnet, "La Muse Malade."

Swamp Feeder - Statuette in fire - black talc. Fat monster with trunk and legs immersed in ooze.

The Familiar - Head in talc. Sorcerer's magistellus.

Dragon - Head in fire - black talc. Combines features of man, fish and seal.

Pegasus - Medallion in dolomite, suitable for wearing on cord.

Proserpine's Flower - Medallion or lavalliere in hard talc, pierced for wearing.

The Sorceror Transformed - Head in talc. Wizard who has undergone bestial transformation.

Proboscidian of the Prime - Statuette in porphyry. Obese monster with heavy wings and long proboscis.

The Mermaid's Butler - Head in porphyry. Semi - human, with gills and fish - like side - whiskers.

Gargoyle of Averoigne - Head in talc. Were - Jaguar - Head in talc. Crustacean Entity - Head in talc.

Entity from Algol - Head in greenish porphyry. Indescribably - featured being.

Black Inquisitor - Head in fire - black talc. Represents judicial sternness and implacability. Features elongated and formalized.

Genius of Guatemala - Bust in reddish porphyry. Aboriginal head with immense ears.

Atlantean Sea - God - Head in picrolite. Prehistoric precursor of Poseidon, with convoluted horns.

Jolly God - Statuette in talc. Seated grotesque, obese, with huge ears and lips.

Tsathoggua - Relief carving in picrolite.

Cappapode - Figurine in talc. Grotesque composed of head and foot.

Djibbi - Bird - Statuette in silver - grey porphyry. Wingless, armless creature in attitude of meditation. Described in "The Door to Saturn." (A Smith story).

Psychoanalyst - Head in fire - black porphyry. Prurient - looking monster with wrinkled brow and proboscis.

Black Beast - Head in fire - black talc.

Warden of the Dead - Head in bronze - green porphyry. Demonic and implacable.

The Puritan - Head in talc. Horse - necked being with expression both morose and prurient.

Jungle Elder - Bust in fire - black talc. Semi - simian bearded monster.

Death - God of Poseidonis - Head in white porphyry, combining features of death's head and embryo.

Seer of Two Worlds - Bust in picrolite. Being with four eyes, two opened, two closed.

Hyperborean Snake - Eater - Head in mottled talc, with tail of reptile issuing from mouth.

The Outsider - Head in talc. Depicting the cadaverous being of H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name. (Pictured on the dust jacket of H. P. L.'s "Beyond the Wall of Sleep").

Flower - Branch Lavalliere - Medallion in hard talc, pierced for wearing.

Moon - Goddess - Head in fire - black talc, surmounted by horned crescent.

Spawn of Cthulhu - Statuette in mottled talc. Monster with hooved fingered tentacles. (On "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" dj).

Treasure Guardians - Book - ends. Heads carved in deep relief on blocks of porphyry. One is a werewolf, the other is a dog - like demon.

Old Devil - Head in rough, eroded sandstone. Conveys half - senile demonism.

Hyperborean Cat - Goddess - Bust in pinkish - white porphyry. Prehistoric prototype of Pasht.

Black Fetish - Head in fire - black talc. Negroid mon.

Man - Vulture - Figurine in bluish talc. Winged monster with brooding expression.

Prehuman God - Figurine in porphyry of contrast colors. Outrageous grotesque from the brood the Old Ones, with web - bearded face and ar growing from the back of the head.

Ancient God - Head in rough, time - eaten sandstoi

Lemurian Ghost - Head in fire - black talc. Sugge: Easter Island sculptures. (Pictured on Smitl "Lost Worlds" dj and in photograph in "Selecl Letters." Possibly the title is a play on won as "lemur" means "ghost").

The Ghoul - Head in hard talc, in highly formalized style. Typifies the incisive, mordant forces decay.

Senescent Ghoul - Head in fire - black talc. Hoik eyed monster with gaping, toothless mouth.

Obsession - Bust in hard gray - black talc. Man w incubus - like monster surmounting his head a shoulders.

St. Anthony - Head in talc heavily mottled with oxic The hooded saint, bug - eyed with the vision some new temptation.

Two - Faced Demon - Head in talc of two colors. Janus - like grotesque, having analogies with Tibetan masks.

The Lamia - Figurine in talc, designed for tra Woman - headed reptile carved about the rim.

Night - Spirit - Female head in black talc, inreclini position. Designed for paper - weight.

Beast of Burden - Figurine in greyg> - white porphyr Crouching, llama - like animal with basket on bea Designed for tray.

Minotaur - Head in fire - black porphyry. Half - huma half - taurine. Skull hollowed for use as ash tra

The Sorceror Eibon - Head in brown porphyry, wi conical monster - carved hat. (On spine of "Beyo the Wall of Sleep" dj).

The Earth Demon - Head in fire - black talc. (C "Lost Worlds" dj).

Inquisitor Morghi - Bust in hard talc. The Inquisitor of "The Door to Saturn." (On "Lost Worlds" dj).

The Plant - Animal - Statuette in hard whitish talc. Armless, semi - anthropomorphic being in stoled robes.

Guardian of Primal Secrets - Head carved in deep relief on block of talc, fire - blackened. Depicts bat - eared monster.

Sentinel of the Sabbath - Head in fire - black talc. Horned demon with open, bird - like beak.

Treasure Guardian - Head carved for book - end, from brownish porphyry. Wattled being, suggestive of both lizard and traditional pawnbroker figure.

Diornis - Head of archaic bird, in talc.

Prehistoric Puffin - Bird's head in brown lava, very rough and paleagean.

Early Mexican Pig - Dog - Figurine in hard talc. Semi - humorous grotesque.

Dog of Commoriom - Relief head in talc. Semi - canine entity.

Reptile - Man - Halfn - length figurine in fire - black porphyry. Being of lost reptile civilization with unknown characters incised on bosom.

Prehuman Emperor - Head in brown porphyry. Being of lost reptile race, with strange letters carved on head - dress.

Hyperborean Oracle - Bird - Figurine in blue - gray porphyry. Pompous - looking avian creature.

Lord of the Eighth Sphere - Figurine in bronze - colored porphyry. Monster with stumps for limbs.

The Hound of Tindalos - Head in brown sandstone. Stream - lined pursuing monster of the ultracosmic pits. (From the Frank Belknap Long story).

Satan's Borzoi - Statuette in fire - black porphyry. Creature suggesting union of dog, man, and monkey.

Warrior - Head in brown porphyry.

Young Behemoth - Figurine in talc. Obese infantile monster with abortive legs.

Young Elemental - Figurine in talc. Being with frog - like head, probably a water - elemental.

Thasaidon - Head in fire - black talc, with horned helmet. The arch- deon of Zothique.

Antehuman Grotesque - Half - length figurine in talc. Corpulent being with short arms. Vaguely suggests both man and hippopotamus.

Watcher of the Fen - Statuette in reddish - brown porphyry. Prehistoric amphibian.

Selenite - Head in fire - black talc.

Tomb - dweller - Statuette in kaolin, painted black and varnished. Winged and brooding entity. Symbolizes memory of the dead.

The Mandrake - Statuette in greenish porphyry. Union of man and plant.

The Blemmye - Statuette in brown talc. Being with head and body combined in one, described by Herodotus and Gustave Flaubert.

The Dragon's Egg - Statuette in hard gray talc. Creature of the prime, holding in its lap a stolen dinosaur's egg.

Antediluvian Mother - Half - length figurine in greenish porphyry. Creature both mammalian and reptilian.

Nameless Entity - Relief head in two - colored porphyry. Semi goat - like being, doubtless related to Shub - Niggurath.

Girl's Head from Pompeii - Hard talc. Has the look of ancient pottery.

Eyeless Demon - Head in brownish talc. Crested with immense ears and empty

Grand Duke of Hades - Head in bronze - green porphyry. Medieval demon with knobbed skull and horn - like nose and chin.

War - Demon- Head in fire- black talc. Expressive both of cruelty and stupidity.

The Harpy - Figurine in talc. Winged female monster crouched on rock.

The Moon - Dweller - Alien head in bluish mottled talc.

Unicom - Relief head on yellow porphyry.

The Fish - Eater- Bust in mottled talc. Grotesque female with gaping mouth.

Martian God - Half - length figurine in talc. Crested being with strange beard and two - fingered hands.

Gargoyle - Head in hard talc. Malignant, semi- feline demon.

Satyr - Head in hard mottled talc.

Mnemosyne - Book - end in rough brown sandstone. The goddess of memory.

Kalilah - Boy's head in hard gray talc, headdress mottled with brown. The price of Beckford's "Third Episode of Vathek."

Sabre - Toothed Nightmare - Monstrous head in greyish - white porphyry.

Female Blemmye - Statuette in brown porphyry. Bird - Statuette in bluish talc with red mottlings.

Scarab Lavalliere - Relief carving in two - colored porphyry. Pierced for wearing on a cord.

Butterfly Lavalliere - Relief carving in two - colord porphyry. Pierced for wearing on a cord.

Aurignacienne - Girl's head in low relief on rouf! piece of olive porphyry.

Eft of the Prime - Figurine in olive porphyry.

Black Princess - Head in fire - black talc. Girl witl exotic headdress.

Elder God - Bust in mottled bluish talc. Lonjj equine - faced being with tentacles emerging frOB chin. (Pictured on "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" dust jacket). i

Plant - Animal - Figurine in whitish talc. Curving ad bent forward, with grotesque semi - batrachian features, six - legged. (On "Lost Worlds" dj and a photograph in "Selected Letters").

Cthulhu - Head in fire - black porphyry. Tentacled.

Printed from: eldritchdark.com/articles/visual-arts/4
Printed on: April 18, 2024