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Scrimshaw tusk, Alwilda the Female Pirate

walrus tusk

SCRIMSHAW & ALLIED ARTS - TUSKS
marad; scrimshaw
Penniman, Edward
1855
12.50 x 1.75 x 0

Scrimshawed walrus tusk, from ship ISABELLA, of New Bedford, which ship was acquired from New York in 1852, and burned by Confederate raider SHENANDOAH in 1864. From base up, tusk is decorated with: bust of young woman; eagle with shield, flowers and arrows; eagle, ribbon embellished; Ship Isabella 1855. Reverse: full-length figure of Alwilda the Female Pirate, wearing trousers, fringed buckskin tunic, with a whip in right hand; a spread eagle, wings spread up and down of tusk. Image of Alwilda after Charles Ellms, "The Pirate's Own Book" (Boston, 1837). "Engraved by E.T. or E.P., whaler ISABELLA of NB, 1855." Attributed to Edward Penniman of Eastham, Mass., boatsteerer in the ISABELLA, 1852-44. He is known (from examples at the Cape Cod National Seashore, the Barbara Johnson Collection and elsewhere) to have been a scrimshaw artist; there is no listing for anyone with the initials E.T. in the crew on that or the subsequent voyages of the ISABELLA. See also 1947.1345
Tusk tip has been cut off.
Ref: Malley, "Graven by the Fishermen Themselves, page 66.


1957.870

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