M.C. Illions and Sons shop, Brooklyn, New York, c. 1910–1912

M.C. Illions (looking at the camera) was one of several New York Coney Island carousel carvers who produced religious artifacts for New York City synagogues. According to his son Barney, Illions also created four sets of ark lions for Brooklyn synagogues. This archival photograph of the Illions workshop in Brooklyn, taken between 1910 and 1912, shows a typical Torah ark pediment carving of lions and Decalogue on the back wall over the doorway. It is hung on top of a drawing for a tiger carousel figure and next to a drawing of a lion. Notice that the lions’ tails in both the drawing and the ark curve back over the animal’s spine. Illions fashioned
all his own tools and insisted on carving all the animals’ heads himself. Other carvers in the shop are working on the bodies of horses. The photo is from the exhibit, “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel,” at the American Folk Art Museum in New York through March 23rd.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution Collections, Archives Center Carousel Collection, 1925–1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History