Name/Title
Scrimshaw: Woman in Bonnet and Woman Playing HarpEntry/Object ID
2025.04.02.01Description
The front depicts a bonneted woman standing in front of a pillared building (possibly in New Bedford, Massachusetts). The back features a woman with a harp, urn, and willow.Use
The making of scrimshaw began on whaling ships in the late 18th century and survived until the ban on commercial whaling. It was a leisure activity practices by sailors who had an abundance of raw material (whale products) available.Context
Scrimshaw is scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in bone, ivory, or whale products such as teeth and baleen. Typically it refers to the artwork created by whalers, engraved on the byproducts of whales. It is most commonly made out of the bones and teeth of sperm whales, the baleen of other whales, and the tusks of walruses. It takes the form of elaborate engravings in the form of pictures and lettering on the surface of the bone or tooth, with the engraving highlighted using a pigment, or, less often, small sculptures made from the same material. (Some content from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrimshaw)
Scrimshandering, as the whalemen called it — making scrimshaw — was an indigenous and exclusive shipboard art of the deepwater trades, practiced mostly by whalers but also occasionally by navy tars and merchant seamen. The whalemen’s practice of engraving pictures on whale ivory, walrus ivory, baleen, and skeletal bone originated in the late Colonial era, almost precisely coevally with the beginnings of whaling out of New Bedford; it matured in the 1820s and ’30s, as New Bedford itself ascended to dominate whaling worldwide; it continued well into the 20th century, right up to the collapse of conventional hand-whaling on sailing ships and rowboats; and, reborn among the “modern” whalers on mechanized floating-factory whaleships and shore stations, it persisted throughout most of the 20th century.
SOURCE: New Bedford Whaling Museum (https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/scrimshaw/)Acquisition
Source (if not Accessioned)
Mrs. James MulcaheyInscription/Signature/Marks
Type
EngravingLocation
InsideTranscription
Scratched on the inside of the tooth is the name "W.S. Mills."Dimensions
Width
2-1/2 inLength
7-1/4 inMaterials
Material
whale toothMaterial Notes
Sperm whale toothLocation
Location
Cabinet
Display Case 6Room
Charles Whipple Greene Historical CollectionBuilding
George Hail Free LibraryDate
April 2, 2025Provenance
Notes
Donated by Mrs. James Mulcahey, 1891.Create Date
April 2, 2025Update Date
July 17, 2025
