🌸 My Favourite Things V : Marble Lions 🌸

Whatsup Steemies? In this edition of #myfavouritethings I'd like to show you some of the incredible carved marble lion sculptures I've had in my shop over the years.

I can't tell you what a feat it is to actually get these sculptures into my shop. Here's how it works.

My boss will go over to India/China/Vietnam and choose from the markets there, or even have our favourite supplier custom make us a design. Since our shop is mostly antique based, we tend to buy and sell a lot of lions, gryphons, angels and other classical items.

Once the he has finalised the order, our suppliers will either load our container directly, or work on the custom orders. Then, they will come by ocean freight to us in South Africa. This can take up to two months sometimes. Then, the items will go through customs here, and then be delivered to our shop. This is the not-so-fun part.

My poor guys then have to offload the container. This is a bitch, but we try our best to make it easy on the guys. We hire a forklift and get extra hands. These lions ain't no light issue!

You can see below how we use a forklift just to move small marble table tops.

^{Time to Go to Your New Home, Mufasa}

Then they will go to a client, and we will have to get our huge 5-ton truck and another forklift in order to deliver the pieces!

^{The Lions on Their Merry Way to the Most Expensive House in Africa... no jokes}

The pieces are painstakingly carved by hand by the artisans we purchase them from. My favourites that we have ever had are these majestic white marble lions, purchased in Belgium. These are actual antiques, and were probably carved in Italy.

^{Don't You Think He Looks Like Aslan From the Chronicles of Narnia?}

These perfectly pristine white marble lions were also another favourite of mine. They were Asian lions, and quite fierce. I loved their balls, they reminded me of circus lions! They went to a fancy wine farm out in the Boland here in the Western Cape.

I always hated this pair. I thought their faces were so juvenile and weird. They were carved from blue stone, which is part of the granite family. It does very well in my shop because it is a bit more rustic, and not as fancy as the white marble

^{Mentally Unwell Lions}

The last pair I'm going to show is the pair that are on the truck in the pics above. These guys were a custom order, meant to look like the stunning antique pair from Belgium I showed above.... BUT, oh well! Not quite. Still majestic and awe inspiring in real life. All of these lions have been taller than me. I suppose that's not difficult at 1,55m or 5ft08. 😆😆

^{Not Quite Right Lions}

I hope you have enjoyed this peek into my life. I post #myfavouritethings once a week, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday, look out for them!

Thanks for reading 🌸