A FINE AND RARE TLINGIT SPEAR-THROWER, atlatl, the finial a bird of prey holding in its talons the head of a seal with its young on its back, the surface extensively carved with totemic motifs including those of a narwhal whose tusk joins the aperture, a human head at the tapered base whose inverted body is carved on the reverse below a bear holding a fish in a hatched recessed panel, hatched parallel bands each side of the groove, two eyes and tail feathers of the bird with translucent blue and green glass bead inlays, fine dark glossy patina, the bird's head an old restoration, late 18th/early 19th century

細節

A FINE AND RARE TLINGIT SPEAR-THROWER, atlatl, the finial a bird of prey holding in its talons the head of a seal with its young on its back, the surface extensively carved with totemic motifs including those of a narwhal whose tusk joins the aperture, a human head at the tapered base whose inverted body is carved on the reverse below a bear holding a fish in a hatched recessed panel, hatched parallel bands each side of the groove, two eyes and tail feathers of the bird with translucent blue and green glass bead inlays, fine dark glossy patina, the bird's head an old restoration, late 18th/early 19th century
37.5cm. long

拍品專文

Cf. another spear-thrower in the Denver Museum of Art, which is attributed to the northern Tlingit (Coe, 1976, p.149, no.345). Bill Holm (Holm and Reid 1975, pp.62-63) discussing the spear-thrower in the Menil collections states: My guess is that it comes from the westernmost Tlingit. Maybe even outside the true Tlingit area, as far as Prince William Sound, getting over to the Chugach country where Aleut and Northwest Coast traditions overlap. Spear-throwers aren't common on the true Northwest Coast. I know of only three or four. All have strange things in them which, to me, suggest the fringes of the basic culture area.