(35) Elephant Figurines of Various Sizes and Materials. Includes wood, bone, plastic, metal, and glass, some with intricate patterns and others a solid color. Quite a collection of pachyderms! 

Largest Size: 5 x 10 1/2 x 12 in. 

#5200 . 

Elephants, the largest living land mammal today, have long been depicted in mythology, symbolism, and popular culture, recognized early on for their immense intelligence and emotional capacity. They are both revered in religion and respected for their prowess in war ever since the Stone Age, when elephants were represented by ancient petroglyphs and cave art. They have been portrayed in countless forms of art, including pictures, sculptures, music, film, and even architecture. The Asian elephant appears most prominently in various Eastern religious traditions and mythologies, with the Hindu god of wisdom, Ganesha, born with the head of an elephant. The African elephant is seen as the wise chief who impartially settles disputes among the forest creatures in African fables. The elephant does not figure in the folklore of indigenous people of the Americas, although some Inuit, Haida, and Kwakiutl oral histories speak of ancient beings that were clearly wooly mammoths, distant relatives of the Asian elephants which were hunted to extinction during the Holocene epoch. Elephants are often featured in modern artistic works, including those by artists such as Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and Banksy. The stork-legged elephant, found in many of Salvador Dalí's works, is one of the surrealist’s best known icons, and Rembrandt did a series of sketches of the famous 17th Century elephant Hansken as well as featuring her as a symbol of chastity in his 1638 etching “Adam and Eve.” Southeast Asian cultures continually associate them with royalty, and since the late 19th Century the animal has been the symbol of the American Republican Party. In modern times, rampant poaching and the near extermination of elephants in an effort to harvest their ivory has led to revolutionary conservation actions across the globe and between numerous nations and organizations, preserving them to inspire future generations of artists.