Birdcagec. 186018 1/2 × 15 1/2 × 15 1/2"Peruvian mahogany, whalebone, sheet metal, and brass pinsGift of Kristina Barbara Johnson2008.17.101540912733P19.2000.1Joseph W. ClappContainersThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24728United StatesMassachusettsThree Dimensional WorkseMuseum - Collection Highlights
Scrimshaw exemplifies both the disjuncture and melding of life and imagination. Fashioned from organic byproducts of the whaling industry, these real-life materials—baleen, bone, and other remains extracted from whales and marine mammals—were used to create utilitarian and fanciful forms, often witty and highly embellished. The heyday of the American whaling industry occurred between the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Voyages typically lasted from three to five years and saw long hours of tedium only sporadically relieved by whale sightings and ensuing activities. Scrimshaw emerged as an artform that helped to relieve the monotony and that yielded personal gifts for loved ones waiting on shore.
The elegant design and expertise evident in the crafting of this birdcage indicate a long familiarity with the tools and materials that went into its creation. Joseph W. Clapp of Nantucket Island was a master mariner and signed on as first mate aboard the Napoleon on December 24, 1858. After he retired from whaling, Clapp created a bird sanctuary in Peru. He remained there for many years before returning near the end of his life to Nantucket, where he was remembered strolling the streets with his pets in their cages.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Birdcage," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgSome of the romanticism associated with whaling history appears to have attached itself to Captain Joseph W. Clapp, who made this refined birdcage and a second example now in the Nantucket Historical Association. Whaling voyages, which lasted typically from three to five years, were characterized by long hours of tedium relieved by sporadic whale sightings and ensuing frantic activities. Scrimshaw—the art of carving material extracted from whales and other marine mammals—helped to relieve the mind-numbing monotony of whaling voyages, and many whalemen acquired impressive carving skills over time. The expertise in the crafting of this birdcage would seem to indicate Clapp’s long familiarity with the tools and materials that went into its creation. The elegant design, reminiscent of that of a gazebo, contrasts impossibly slender hand-carved whalebone reeds and fountain-like feeders with the richness of Peruvian mahogany.
Clapp was born on Nantucket on July 11, 1825, to Timothy and Eliza W. Clapp. He married Anna Coleman and is buried in New North Cemetery. He earned his Master Mariner license and signed on as first mate aboard the Napoleon, sailing to the Pacific on December 24, 1858, under Captain Thomas Dallman. After he gave up whaling, Clapp created a bird sanctuary in Peru, where he remained for many years before returning to Nantucket near the end of his life.
The heyday of the American whaling industry lasted from the late eighteenth century through the late nineteenth century, and its primary goal was the procurement of oil for lighting, heating, and other purposes. By the time this birdcage was made, the whale population was greatly diminished, and kerosene had begun to replace whale oil. Nantucket went into an economic decline by the 1840s, while other whaling ports, such as New Bedford, remained active through the 1880s.
Whaling has left a rich legacy of material culture including log books, personal letters and other documentation, tools, and beautiful scrimshaw objects. Although today we are most familiar with jagging wheels, canes, and other small sculptural forms, birdcages were common enough for Herman Melville to write in Moby-Dick: “A lost land-bird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive; out of clean shave rods of right whale-bone, and cross beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it.” From this and documentary sources we know that pets were welcome diversions on the voyages. In 1884, Captain Ferguson of the Kathleen refers to “large and small monkeys . . . fifteen or twenty parrots; a lot of parrakeets, chickens, ducks, and at least six small black pigs. The cooper has a dozen small singing birds. . . . The fourth mate has a parrot and so have I.” In a recollection of the bygone era of sailing ships, John D. Whidden termed Captain Clapp “the most original of men, a genuine Nantucketer,” and dedicated his book Ocean Life in the Old Sailing-Ship Days (1908) to Clapp. And as late as the 1950s, there were still residents who remembered Captain Clapp strolling “the streets of Nantucket regularly with his pets in their cages.”http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24728http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24728http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24728P19.2000.118551865 2008 17 1
Scrimshaw exemplifies both the disjuncture and melding of life and imagination. Fashioned from organic byproducts of the whaling industry, these real-life materials—baleen, bone, and other remains extracted from whales and marine mammals—were used to create utilitarian and fanciful forms, often witty and highly embellished. The heyday of the American whaling industry occurred between the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Voyages typically lasted from three to five years and saw long hours of tedium only sporadically relieved by whale sightings and ensuing activities. Scrimshaw emerged as an artform that helped to relieve the monotony and that yielded personal gifts for loved ones waiting on shore.
The elegant design and expertise evident in the crafting of this birdcage indicate a long familiarity with the tools and materials that went into its creation. Joseph W. Clapp of Nantucket Island was a master mariner and signed on as first mate aboard the Napoleon on December 24, 1858. After he retired from whaling, Clapp created a bird sanctuary in Peru. He remained there for many years before returning near the end of his life to Nantucket, where he was remembered strolling the streets with his pets in their cages.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Birdcage," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgSome of the romanticism associated with whaling history appears to have attached itself to Captain Joseph W. Clapp, who made this refined birdcage and a second example now in the Nantucket Historical Association. Whaling voyages, which lasted typically from three to five years, were characterized by long hours of tedium relieved by sporadic whale sightings and ensuing frantic activities. Scrimshaw—the art of carving material extracted from whales and other marine mammals—helped to relieve the mind-numbing monotony of whaling voyages, and many whalemen acquired impressive carving skills over time. The expertise in the crafting of this birdcage would seem to indicate Clapp’s long familiarity with the tools and materials that went into its creation. The elegant design, reminiscent of that of a gazebo, contrasts impossibly slender hand-carved whalebone reeds and fountain-like feeders with the richness of Peruvian mahogany.
Clapp was born on Nantucket on July 11, 1825, to Timothy and Eliza W. Clapp. He married Anna Coleman and is buried in New North Cemetery. He earned his Master Mariner license and signed on as first mate aboard the Napoleon, sailing to the Pacific on December 24, 1858, under Captain Thomas Dallman. After he gave up whaling, Clapp created a bird sanctuary in Peru, where he remained for many years before returning to Nantucket near the end of his life.
The heyday of the American whaling industry lasted from the late eighteenth century through the late nineteenth century, and its primary goal was the procurement of oil for lighting, heating, and other purposes. By the time this birdcage was made, the whale population was greatly diminished, and kerosene had begun to replace whale oil. Nantucket went into an economic decline by the 1840s, while other whaling ports, such as New Bedford, remained active through the 1880s.
Whaling has left a rich legacy of material culture including log books, personal letters and other documentation, tools, and beautiful scrimshaw objects. Although today we are most familiar with jagging wheels, canes, and other small sculptural forms, birdcages were common enough for Herman Melville to write in Moby-Dick: “A lost land-bird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive; out of clean shave rods of right whale-bone, and cross beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it.” From this and documentary sources we know that pets were welcome diversions on the voyages. In 1884, Captain Ferguson of the Kathleen refers to “large and small monkeys . . . fifteen or twenty parrots; a lot of parrakeets, chickens, ducks, and at least six small black pigs. The cooper has a dozen small singing birds. . . . The fourth mate has a parrot and so have I.” In a recollection of the bygone era of sailing ships, John D. Whidden termed Captain Clapp “the most original of men, a genuine Nantucketer,” and dedicated his book Ocean Life in the Old Sailing-Ship Days (1908) to Clapp. And as late as the 1950s, there were still residents who remembered Captain Clapp strolling “the streets of Nantucket regularly with his pets in their cages.”