Luck-Charm

Luck-Charm

Object name: Luck-Charm
Date: 1912
Dimensions:
20 x 160 x 120 mm
Medium: Aluminium
Object number: LDCUM1916.001.115A
Description'The "Lovett" Motor Mascot'; a horse brass of silver coloured metal, designed by Edward Lovett. The charm is shaped as a horseshoe with three symbols in the centre - a crescent (the crescent of Diana), a crescent with a cross in the centre (the Byzantine crescent with a star), a circle with a cross (wheel of the sun chariot), and a swastika (a symbol of auspiciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) on top. These symbols represent the sun and the moon.

Horse brasses were worn on the martingales of heavy cart horses and were collected as an example of the survival of sun and moon worship. The Mascot was designed to be a powerful amulet. The accompanying leaflet states: "This mascot is, by far, the most powerful one that has ever been designed, consisting as it does of five of the most widely recognised types of amulet in existence, some of which have been in use for more than two thousand years."