Vineyard Dreams: Property from a Martha's Vineyard Collection
Vineyard Dreams: Property from a Martha's Vineyard Collection
Property from a Martha's Vineyard Collection
Very Fine and Rare Whalebone Scrimshaw Wall Pocket, Nantucket, Massachusetts, circa 1870
This lot has been withdrawn
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Martha's Vineyard Collection
Very Fine and Rare Whalebone Scrimshaw Wall Pocket
Nantucket, Massachusetts
circa 1870
mounted on a later carved wood and parcel-ebonized frame; together with documents from a whale ship
Height 29 in. by Width 25 7/8 in.
Please note this lot has been withdrawn from the sale.
The Breckenridge-Long Collection;
Frank Sylvia, Nantucket;
Sotheby's, New York, Barbara Johnson Whaling Collection: Part IV, December 16-17, 1983, lot 419.
Frank Sylvia, Nantucket;
Sotheby's, New York, Barbara Johnson Whaling Collection: Part IV, December 16-17, 1983, lot 419.
Robert Bishop, American Folk Sculpture (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc, 1972) no. 191, p. 115.
A. B. C. Whipple and the Editors of Time-Life Books, The Whalers (Alexandria: Time-Life Books, 1979), illus. p. 131.
A. B. C. Whipple and the Editors of Time-Life Books, The Whalers (Alexandria: Time-Life Books, 1979), illus. p. 131.
A unique tour de force, it is one of the largest genuine single pieces of scrimshaw in existence. The wall pocket mounted on the wall and used to hold newspapers, letters and magazines. It was constructed by sectioning very large slabs of whalebone from the panbone and working them into extremely complex, open-carved pieces, which were joined with copper rivets and pins.