One of the most iconic images of automotive history, the Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, a symbol of opulence and wealth, carries with it a hint of another a story. A story of forbidden love and of tragedy.<\/p>\n
Here she sits, no longer being driven, under a carport in outback Broken Hill. Her last steward, with us no more. I wonder what Pro Hart thought of her as he drove her around adorning his own Rolls Royce Corniche?<\/p>\n
The work of artist Charles Robinson Sykes, she\u2019s known as \u2018The Silver Lady\u2019 or \u2018The Flying Lady\u2019 and sometimes as \u2018Eleanor\u2019 after Eleanor Thornton, mistress of Baron John Montagu of Beaulieu. It is strongly believed that Eleanor was Sykes model and inspiration.<\/p>\n
In 1913 Sykes created \u2018The Whisperer\u2019, styled on the \u2018Spirit of Ecstacy\u2019, to adorn the bonnet of Montagu\u2019s Silver Ghost. The four inch tall figurine with flowing robes and a finger pressed to her lips belied the secret love affair. Tragically Eleanor drowned two years later when she and Montagu were sailing through the Mediterranean, their ship torpedoed by a German U-Boat.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll never look at a Rolls Royce quite the same again especially one with the \u2018Spirit of Ecstasy\u2019 adorning her bonnet. That statement of wealth and opulence will always be there but now I\u2019ll see a human story too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the most iconic images of automotive history, the Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, a symbol of opulence and wealth, carries with it a hint of another a story. A story of forbidden love and of tragedy. Here she sits, no longer being driven, under a carport in outback Broken Hill. Her last steward, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2794,644,2793,2795,175,2792],"class_list":["post-8488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-charlesrobinsonsykes","tag-mascot","tag-ornament","tag-rollsroyce","tag-sculpture","tag-spiritofecstasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8490,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488\/revisions\/8490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}