A FINE RARE HEAD CANOE MODEL

CANOE MODELS FROM THE JAMES AND MARILYB BERGSTROM COLLECTION The Northwest Coast canoe tradition is a rich and varied one, with many different tribes and language groups developing their own unique styles of watercraft. Each of these styles addressed the challenge of maritime transportation with canoe hull forms that were especially suited to open water hunting or traveling, and also incorporated sleek, fair, graphic lines that indicate a great deal of genius and sophistication in their design. Many old-time canoemakers also created detailed models, both prior to and after Euro-American contact, and these have served to tell us a lot about the evolution of the overall canoe tradition. This collection features an unusually broad selection of model types, spanning from the 18th century to the early 20th, and depicting canoe styles from Washington Gulf of Alaska. Two fine kayak models and one of birchbark round out the picture that this collection provides of Native watercraft from the northern Pacific coast of North America. The earliest northern canoe tradition exemplified by two fine Head canoe models, each of which illustrates the unusual and intriguing form of this archaic canoe type, as well as featuring exceptional examples of formline painting. Three examples of the 19th century Northern canoe type (that which supplanted the Head canoe in general usage) show the graceful lines and functional flares that made these canoes both highly seaworthy and a joy to behold. The unusual Yakutat style hunting canoe, with its triangular, forward extension of the lower hull, is represented in two very well shaped and painted models. The fascinating, animated lines of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth or Nootkan style canoe has intrigued viewers for centuries. A more alert, animated graphic design for such a watercraft could hardly be imagined. Made over many centuries of time and a wide geographic area, the consistency of characteristics in these (and other canoe models) made by different artists is astounding. The smooth, fair lines of the straight canoe models are a pleasure to see, and some makers have gone a bold step further by carving paddlers and hunters within the models, sometimes, as in these examples, of a single piece of wood. One of the two such models in this collection depicts two portly humanoid beings set low in the canoe hull, while the other very accurately illustrates a steersman and spearman in the act of approaching their seal quarry. The harpoon, paddle, and arms of these figures are added, but their bodies are intergral with the canoe, truly an accomplished feat of carving skill. Steven C. Brown Seattle Art Museum Associate Curator for Native American Art

Details

A FINE RARE HEAD CANOE MODEL
With vertical fins at bow and stern, interior shallow groove under gunwale, painted with red and black formlines and ovoids, exterior decorated with stylized animal's head on the bow and stern
25in. (63.5cm.) long

Provenance

Collected by Fred Grant at Hydaburg, Alaska in 1860

Exhibited

On loan to the Burke Museum from 1994 to June 1996

Lot Essay

This canoe model depicts the typical features, the delicate ends, the sharply angled stern and the exaggerated bow with an almost vertical edge, which identify it as a Head canoe type. There is compelling information (Holm, 1987, p. 147) which establishes the Head canoe as the predominant large canoe type in the Northern Northwest regions as early as the late 18th century. By the early-19th century, this canoe type was replaced by a vessel with modified bow, stern and gunwale proportions which likely made a more maneuverable craft.

Concerning Head canoe models, which, like other canoe models, were not designed with the same proportions as the full sized vessels, Holm writes: "The earliest dates for Head canoe models are 1791 for the Malaspina model in the Museum of Americas in Madrid and the Tadeus Hanke models in the Naprstek Museum in Prague, and the 1793-4 for the Vancouver model in the British Museum. A number of models were collected in the first decades of the 19th century, when the type had fallen into disuse, and among those are canoes displaying some of the finest 19th century Northwest Coast painting extant (Holm, 1987, p. 152)."