(MARITIME WHALING) [CROMWELL JOHN WESLEY] Polychrome Scrims

Sale 2171 - Lot 301

Price Realized: $ 1,920

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

WITH AN EXCEPTIONAL PROVENANCE (MARITIME--WHALING.) [CROMWELL, JOHN WESLEY.] Polychrome Scrimshaw Whale's Tooth depicting a seated woman, holding the American flag in one hand and a medal-like shield with the word "Liberty" in the other. 5- 1/2 inches high by 2- 1/2 inches at the base; a couple of chips to the blank reverse side. Np, circa 1800-1850

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a piece of whaling americana with an exceptional association. This scrimshaw whale''s tooth was passed down by John Wesley Cromwell (1846-1927), author, historian and co-founder with Alexander Crummell (1819-1898) of the American Negro Academy, to his granddaughter, Adelaide Cromwell. In her history of the family, "Unveiled Voices, Unvarnished Memories" (University of Missouri Press, 2007) Ms. Cromwell writes: "Passed down to me by my father, John Wesley Cromwell Jr., was a small bundle of artifacts, which he had received from his father John Wesley Cromwell. These items included . . . what my father always thought, for some strange reason, was a rhinoceros horn--which had been sent home to my great grandfather, Willis Cromwell, either by James (his brother, a sailor in the Civil War) or by his officer Mr. Brooks. The ''horn'' was certified by a staff member at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University to be [the] tooth of a sperm whale!"
The scrimshaw work carved on its surface is a variant on a famous American painting on glass by Edward Savage (now lost) titled "Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth; giving Support to the Bald Eagle." (1796)
According to an article in Antiques Magazine by Lewis C. Jones (July 1958), variations on this painting appeared on all sorts of things, including the walls of brothels in China, "where American and British sailors may have had the opportunity to broaden their horizons." While this tooth lacks the bald eagle, it is clearly a variation on the theme of the painting.