UNIDENTIFIED ARTIST, EASTERN CANADIAN ARCTIC, POSSIBLY KIMMIRUT (LAKE HARBOUR)
unsigned.
LOT 124
ESTIMATE: $1,500 — $2,500
Further images
This delicately rendered walrus tusk cribbage board, while unsigned, was surely done by someone with a true mastery of the material. The finely carved narwhal and walrus trestles support an elegant cribbage board adorned with superb bas-reliefs of a seal and wolf at opposing ends. It is likely that Sir Patrick Ashley Cooper obtained this piece in person while on his tour of HBC posts in the Arctic. Since the most famous ivory art-producing community in the late 1940s and early 1950s was Lake Harbour (now Kimmirut), it is possible that the work was carved in that area.
Literature: For somewhat later examples of cribbage boards from Kimmirut (Lake Harbour) see Bernadette Driscoll, Baffin Island (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1983), cats. 43, 44, 64.
Provenance
Ex Coll. of Sir Patrick Ashley Cooper (1887-1961). Major Cooper was Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1931 to 1952, and a director of the Bank of England from 1932-1955. He was the first HBC Governor to have actually travelled in the Arctic in 265 years.
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