SCRIMSHAW SQUABBLE
Maritime Museum accused of displaying fakes.
A controversial exhibit of erotic carvings at the Vancouver Maritime Museum is a collection of fakes that should not be on display, according to the museum’s former director.
James Delgado directed the museum from 1991 to 2006. He said when the museum acquired the erotic collection in the late- 1990s, an American expert analyzed the collection for authentication.
The verdict, says Delgado: “They’re all modern fakes.”
The Tattoos & Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor exhibit now on display at the museum includes about two dozen carvings on sperm whale teeth. As there was plenty of downtime on- board during whaling trips, “scrimshandering” ( or carving into a whale’s ivory, bone or teeth) was a popular pastime.
One portion of the scrimshaw exhibit displays carvings etched with dates going back to the mid- 19th century. There are no qualifiers in the exhibit to suggest the dates are inaccurate.
A separate section of the scrimshaw display is clearly labelled as modern, explaining the carvings were done by a contemporary artist who purposely mimics an older style. Some are depictions of sexual acts, while others are carved with romantic poems, dedications to long- lost loves, “a peep at the mermaid,” words expressing sailors’ longing for land, and more than a few topless ladies.
Delgado questioned displaying the fakes as “indicative of what whalers did in that period.”
“I wouldn’t have done it, because I’m a historian and there’s a responsibility to authenticity,” he said. “( The
They’re still beautiful objects. I’m saying that, whether they are ( authentic 19th century scrimshaws) or not, they’re examples of the kind of work that would have been done. SIMON ROBINSON MUSEUM’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
carvings) represent what somebody in the ’ 70s thought would have enticed collectors to buy them.”
Delgado’s allegations are disputed by the museum’s current executive director.
“I don’t understand his agenda,” said Simon Robinson, who noted the museum has clearly posted that the origin of the scrimshaws has been questioned, and that there is nothing in the museum records to verify they are fakes.
“We placed them in the exhibit because they’re representative of the kind of work that scrimshanders produced.”
Delgado said there is no authenticated example of erotic scrimshaws in any museum collection. The Maritime Museum knew that when it was offered this collection in the late- 1990s by the widow of a prominent local art collector whose interests included erotica. Still, the museum decided to assess the collection anyway.
An analysis was conducted by Stuart Frank, now the senior curator of the Kendall Collection at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts and an acknowledged expert on scrimshaw, Delgado said. Frank concluded none of the pieces were real, and that they resembled examples that emerged from Southern California in the 1970s.
Delgado said it was also determined that the style of the art and the scenes depicted were more modern, and did not accurately reflect a mid- to- late 19th- century style except in some of the lettering and in the depiction of the ships.
“( Frank) was very clear,” Delgado added. “He had seen most of the collection. He was dubious, and looked carefully at it and said, ‘ Sorry, they’re all fakes.’”
Delgado noted that one of the scrimshaw pieces is a modification of a Paul Gauguin Tahitian painting of the 1890s and that the engravings were uniform, as though done in a machine.
Despite that, he said, the museum accepted the collection on Frank’s recommendation to keep it under lock and key to avoid its sale and entry into the market again.
He said the board decided “to not even display the pieces, and the tax receipt issued by the museum to the donor was for a minimal value for the teeth alone, and did not recognize these as authentic scrimshaw.”
Delgado said the museum’s catalogue record for the scrimshaw collection was, at the time of his departure in 2006, complete and contained Frank’s report.
“( The donor) was dismayed that her husband was mislead by the person who sold it to him,” added Delgado, who said he has tried to contact the museum as to why the collection of fakes would be used in an exhibit, but has received no response.
He added there was never any intent to display the collection, because “it served no scholarly value, was not representative of the art or the styles, falsely depicted a form not known to exist in scrimshaw, and to show it we felt would invite confusion and perhaps lead to imitation and a market of this type of fake into an already complex scrimshaw forgery and fake market that perplexes and does not make it easy for the maritime museums of the world, let alone serious collectors.”
Robinson acknowledged the museum does not know if the carvings are authentic — “we can’t say that for sure” — but he believes at least some of them are.
“That’s my assumption. Mr. Delgado has a right to his opinion.”
Regardless, he added: “They’re still beautiful objects. I’m saying that, whether they are ( authentic 19th century scrimshaws) or not, they’re examples of the kind of work that would have been done.”