Ray Ryan, owner of the Mount Kenya Club, gave the elephant skull to Julian and Juliette Huxley in the early 1960s. The Huxley's kept the skull in their Hampstead garden, on a rotating table, for about two years. Moore saw the skull in 1965. In 1966, Juliette decided to give the skull to Henry. Moore who described it as “the most impressive item in my ‘library’ of natural forms.”