SIGNED "BOWMAN", AMERICAN, LATE 19TH CENTURY

With its clear signature at lower left, "Bowman," this unusual hunting panorama may be the work of Long Island decoy carver, William Bowman (c. 1824-1906). Said to be either a cabinetmaker or sawmill worker from Bangor, Maine, Bowman migrated south to Lawrence, Long Island, where he worked as a market gunner and decoy maker each summer. While Bowman is known especially for his carved shorebirds, including curlews, plovers, dowitchers, yellowlegs and ruddy turnstones, he is also known to have carved ducks, geese and brants. The unifying characteristics of all his birds is the sensitive and precise rendering of their faces and distinguishing features, including glass eyes in recessed sockets and well defined, deeply cut wings. In addition, the necks on Bowman ducks are let in, in the manner of Maine decoys. For further information, see Kangas, Decoys: A North American Survey (Spanish Fork, UT, 1983), pp. 65-66, 71, and 203. See also Colio, American Decoys (Science Press, 1972), p. 40.