The maker of this oddball candleholder must have had someone from history or literature in mind. It doesn’t seem logical that the designer would have arbitrarily come up with the idea of a beheaded candle holder, without some historical reference to draw upon. In any case, I have no clue as to who or what it represents, other than something that clearly qualifies as an odd yard sale find.
The June Taylor Dancers were regulars on many of the late Jackie Gleason’s numerous television variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s, partly because they were nice to look at and partly because they performed memorable group dance routines that usually involved an overhead shot of the kaleidoscope effect they created with their arms and legs. Call it strange, but that overhead June Taylor shot was honestly the first thing I thought of when I spotted this somewhat macabre candle holder at a local estate sale:
Odd Yard Sale Finds 