SPIRIT OF ECSTASY
1911, Charles Robinson Sykes
Inspired by a secret and ill-fated love affair, the Spirit of Ecstacy was commissioned by automotive pioneer Lord Montagu of Beaulieu to honor his mistress, Eleanor. Four years after she posed for the sculpture, the couple were traveling aboard the SS Persia when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. Montagu survived. Eleanor, tragically, did not.