Charles Robinson Sykes (18 December 1875 – 6 June 1950) was an English sculptor, best known for designing the ''

Spirit of Ecstasy ''The Spirit of Ecstasy'' is the bonnet ornament sculpture on Rolls-Royce (car), Rolls-Royce cars. It is in the form of a woman leaning forwards with her arms outstretched behind and above her. Billowing cloth runs from her arms to her back, ...

'' mascot which is used on

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

cars. Sykes was born in 1875 in

Brotton Brotton is a village in the civil parish of Skelton and Brotton and situated approximately south-east of Saltburn-by-the-Sea, 9 miles from Redcar, east of Middlesbrough and north-west of Whitby. In 2011, the village had a population of 5,39 ...

, in present-day

Redcar and Cleveland Redcar and Cleveland is a borough with unitary authority status in North Yorkshire, England. Its main settlements are Redcar, South Bank, Eston, Brotton, Guisborough, the Greater Eston part of Middlesbrough, Loftus, Saltburn and Skelton. Th ...

, England. The ''Spirit of Ecstasy'', also called "Emily", "Silver Lady" or "Flying Lady", carries with it a story about a secret passion between John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu (second Lord Montagu of Beaulieu after 1905, a pioneer of the automobile movement, and editor of ''The Car'' magazine from 1902) and his secret love and the model for the emblem, Eleanor Velasco Thornton. Sykes was commissioned by Lord Montagu to make a special mascot for his 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Sykes produced a small statue of a young woman in fluttering robes with a forefinger to her lips. It was named "The Whisper" and is to this day unique to the Montagu family's Rolls-Royces. The statue is displayed at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu. Sykes was also an illustrator under the pseudonym 'Rilette'. His work appeared on the cover of many issues of the magazine ''Woman'' Design in the Victoria and Albert Museum
accessed on 19 July 2020 published by Hutchinson and he designed many advertisements, especially for de Reszke cigarettes.

References

English sculptors English male sculptors 1875 births 1950 deaths Alumni of the Royal College of Art People from Redcar and Cleveland Rolls-Royce 20th-century British sculptors {{UK-sculptor-stub