Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum - Rilegato

Frank, Stuart M.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1567924522 ISBN 13: 9781567924527

Casa editrice: David R Godine Pub, 2012

Riassunto

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the New England port of New Bedford was among the ?ve richest cities in America. Its wealth was derived from a single source – whale oil, the “fossil fuel” of the early Industrial Revolution, providing light and lubrication to the burgeoning economy of young America. The New Bedford whaling ?eet was the most numerous, adventurous, and far-ranging in the world, setting off on voyages that often lasted for three or four years and extended as far as the Antarctic and Siberia.When the whalemen were not engaged in hunting whales or routine maintenance, some of their time was spent carving materials harvested from the whales themselves: the teeth and bones of sperm whales, baleen from right and bowhead whales, and walrus tusks acquired by barter from Native people in the Arctic. The resulting practical and decorative objects, often intricately carved and carefully crafted, would provide mementos and treasured souvenirs for loved ones back home, at voyage end. The range of the work is extraordinary – not simply the decorated sperm whale teeth that the word “scrimshaw” ordinarily brings to mind, but also crimpers and canes, umbrellas and swifts. Anything that could be made of ivory and bone was considered fair game.The collection at the New Bedford Whaling Museum is the largest, most varied, and most representative in the world. And in this book, with the subject's leading expert, curator Stuart M. Frank as your guide, you will be introduced to every possible permutation of these whalemen's fancies. The 700 detailed and dramatic photographs are stunning, the captions revealing, and the stories behind the objects themselves compelling. If the arts of the sea and the sailor hold any interest, this comprehensive survey from the best collection in existence will keep you enthralled and is surely destined to be considered the last word on the subject for decades to come.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Dr. Stuart M. Frank is Senior Curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Executive Director Emeritus of the Kendall Whaling Museum, and Founder/Director of the Scrim­shaw Forensics Laboratory®. A native of New York City, he was educated at Wesleyan, Yale, and Brown, and is the author of books on maritime songs as well as on scrimshaw and the art of whaling. With his wife, Dr. Mary Malloy, he has performed concert tours on four continents, presenting traditional sailors' songs and ballads excavated from shipboard manuscripts in the New Bedford Whaling Museum collection.

Product Description:

Book by Stuart M Frank

Su questa edizione

• Editore: David R Godine Pub
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1567924522
• ISBN 13: 9781567924527
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 384