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Artworks
THULE CULTURE OR EARLY HISTORIC PERIOD INUIT ARTIST, POSSIBLY POND INLET AREA
Female Figurine, 19th century or earlierivory, 3 x 0.75 x 0.25 in (7.6 x 1.9 x 0.6 cm)LOT 104
ESTIMATE: $600 — $900
PRICE REALIZED: $1,464.00Further images
With its elongated and simplified overall form and minimal features delicately incised onto face and torso, its broad shoulders with truncated arms, and a distinctive topknot, this charming work of...With its elongated and simplified overall form and minimal features delicately incised onto face and torso, its broad shoulders with truncated arms, and a distinctive topknot, this charming work of art apparently has many of the hallmarks of a Thule-style female figurine. Traded to the original collector in 1935, it is unclear if it was scores or perhaps a couple of hundred years old at the time; almost another century has passed since then. Given its small size, it may have been carved as an amulet and not a toy. This ivory figurine possesses naïveté and elegance in equal measure.Provenance
Collected by William Melville MacLean (1888-1978), the Canadian Post Office official travelling to Hudson Bay, Baffin Island, and Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Island aboard the famous Arctic icebreaker Nascopie when it was rechristened the R.M.S. [Royal Mail Ship] Nascopie in 1935;
by descent in the family.
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