Northwest Coast Wood Club, probably Haida

very finely carved with a cylindrical pommel and recessed grip, with a ropework design, emerging to a crouching lion, paws curled and pulled tighly to the torso, wearing a voracious expression, with lips parted to reveal incisors, thick flaring whiskers, rounded nose with exaggerated septum, pointed oval eyerims beneath backswept ears, and mane with long twisting tendrils, the openwork tail curving along the back; rich, dark brown patina overall.

Very good condition with some wear to the underside of the paws on which the club has been resting. A series of minor and stable hairline splits on the thick end of the club.
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For a related example, possibly by the same hand, see Ellis, 2013, p. 117, pl. 50. Also see Vincent, 1995, p. 71 for a depiction of a Nul'amal mask that has adapted lion imagery probably from a figurehead of an American or European sailing ship.

In a letter from Bill Holm that accompanies the lot, he writes: "I am quite in agreement that the lion club is very likely by the carver of the two lion figures, and that the lion motif is of European derivation. It is very interesting that this club retains the traditional form of the seal/fish club of the north, with the animal (usually a seal ion or a killer whale) carved as the striking end of the club and with a somewhat constricted grip with enlarge pommel and some kind of grooving apparently to improve the grip, The choice of the African lion for the club, I think, has less to do with the analogy of the sealion than with its apparent relationship to the two lion sculptured figures. Whether they were at one time a set is probably going to be impossible to determine, but it certainly is possible.

European lion sculpture was certainly the inspiration for a number of lion-like figures in Northwest Coast art. The clearest examples are certain Nulmal masks of the Quatsino Sound area of Vancouver Island...There are quite a few in collections around the world. Many years ago I read a paper at UCLA on the subject of "Some Further Conundrums in Northwest Coast Indian Art" in which I theorized at length about the origin of this form of the Nulmal mask and compared it with European examples, some from architectural details but most (and most likely as a source) from ships' carvings. You mention that there is "reference to an English ship of the line, with lion figurehead. As a matter of fact, the lion was so common as a figurehead that the term "lion" was at one point nearly synonymous with "figurehead." However I think a more likely source was the "cathead" carving. The sailing ships of the early historic period on tile Northwest Coast had timbers called "catheads" protruding over the bows and to which the anchors were raised. The ends of these timbers were often carved, the most common design being a lion's head. I believe these were the source of the lion-type Nulmal mask, as they were even more ubiquitous than lion figureheads. I also believe that the lion-like carving (it is not a mask) in the pictures you sent, described as "found in the first Christian church in old Metlakatla" and now in the Royal British Columbia Museum, is not an Indian carving, but is probably a ship's carving.

Although the two lion figures that George Terasaki had seem certainly to be from the Northwest Coast, the idea of that origin is very much strengthened by this club, which is without any doubt a northern Northwest Coast production. I think that Steve Brown's assessment of a pre-1850 Haida origin is quite believeable."