Long story short, we cleared out a loft (attic?) today and found this. Click on the photo to see the full image.
It’s about a meter tall, the figure is two dimensional (ie painted on flat board, both sides painted), and the odd T-shaped thing, which looks like it ought to be a movable lever, does not actually move at all, it’s fixed rigidly in place. Best guess is that it is at least sixty years old. The loft we were emptying is forty miles south of London, England - but this may well be other-than-British in origin. My original thought was that the figure was African/African American; but looking at it now, possibly South Asian?
My best WAG is that you are supposed to drape something - an article of clothing? - over the T, so it’s a bit like a liveried servant assisting you to dress. But the way it’s built, a heavy item of clothing would likely cause it to topple forwards. A tie rack, perhaps?
Poking around on google, I can find a lot of things with a similar style, sometimes 2D like yours and sometimes fancier 3D, but they are for ashtrays or drink trays.
Hat makes sense from the point of view of weight, but I don’t see how it would work heightwise. Granted, I never previously saw a table hatstand, but this is a meter tall, remember.
I once bought my mom a Christmas gift similar in design to the figurines holding trays, except the one I bought was made to look like an English butler.
I agree that the OP’s piece would be a good place to put your hat (or scarf).
Surprisingly, I have just had a (partial?) answer to this question. But I need to provide a little background here.
The person whose loft we cleared is in the process of moving into a nursing home. It’s inevitable (the final domestic disaster hospitalized them for a month and could have killed them) but it’s not something they are able to readily accept yet. There are still the vestiges of that impossible dream of being able to “go back home”.
So, as the resettlement slowly progresses, there are certain subjects which, on visits, you cannot discuss – including, obviously, anything which begins with “So, we cleared out your loft…” For this reason, we simply couldn’t ask what that weird object was.
Except that one of the loft-clearing party did ask exactly that – and it was OK (!!). This object is (we are told) a jacket hanger – which I find surprising because it’s hard to see that it would be stable enough, but there you go
The piece came from friends who owned an antique shop, and later emigrated to SF – what wasn’t clear (I had this second hand) was whether the piece was pre- or post the move to SF. I’ll see if I can get that clarified. (The best guess of *at least 60 years old" was based on the assumption that it had been the property of our friend’s parents - not so. But it may be that old anyways, of course.)
