Rare carved cherry miniature figureheads: mermaid and woman with trumpet Probably Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts, second half 19th century

Found in Salem, Massachusetts
Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, Brookline, Massachusetts
Sotheby’s New York, "The Bertram K. Little and Nina Fletcher Little Collection, Part I," January 29, 1994, lot 210

"New England on Land and Sea: An Exhibition of the Collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little," Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, 1970
"Folk Art Revealed," New York, American Folk Art Museum, November 16, 2004-August 23, 2009
"Jubilation/Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined," New York, American Folk Art Museum, January 17-September 2, 2012

Bishop, Robert, American Folk Sculpture, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974, pp. 100-101
Little, Nina Fletcher, Country Arts in Early American Homes, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975, p. 124
—. Little by Little: Six Decades of Collecting American Decorative Arts. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984, p. 62
Peabody Museum, New England on Land and Sea: An Exhibition of the Collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum, 1970, pp. 22
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 349, fig. 312A-B

Tiny old chip on base of cross- armed example; tiny old chip on left hand of trumpeting figure.
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Found in an old house in Salem, Massachusetts, these miniature figureheads are finely detailed representations of the type of carvings that graced the prows of oceangoing vessels during the last great era of the wooden sailing ship. Given their small size, they were probably done by a skilled carver for personal enjoyment or perhaps as a gift to a friend or relative. The woman with a trumpet strikes a dramatic pose as she leans forward with head raised, grasping the horn, long arms extending forward and back, and a windswept skirt that terminates in a well-carved scroll base, Even without wings, she closely resembles a Gabriel figure, which was a popular type on land and at sea. The mermaid, too, is delicately carved, with hands clasped to her chest in typical figurehead fashion and a stylized tail that suggests a flutter of movement through the waves.

Figureheads with the sharp forward lean seen in these two miniatures were first developed in the late 1840s for ocean clippers, fast and sleek vessels that dominated the China trade for a generation. Because of a change in bow design, figureheads were attached higher than before, at an inclined angle that gave them a more horizontal orientation. Ship-carvers responded by creating a new style of figure that appeared to extend farther out, ahead of the ship, leading it onward in a rush of motion. The type remained popular until the demise of the figurehead tradition at the end of the century.¹  -R.S.

¹ For a discussion of the development of American figureheads, see especially Brewington, Ship carvers.