Ship's Figurehead: Julia B. Merrill

Date1872

MediumPainted red oak

DimensionsOverall: 35 x 18 1/2 x 9 1/2in. (88.9 x 47 x 24.1cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1959.704.1

DescriptionA full-length figure of a partially nude girl, her body clothed only in a loose drape that twines round her body and, on her head, a tam with a tassel on top. Little paint remains; most of what there is is white, but her hair retains much of its black, her eyes are blue, and her mouth red. Her hair falls loose down her back to her shoulder blades. She stands stiffly erect, her proper right arm bent at the elbow and her proper right hand raise to her forehead as though saluting, or shading her eyes in order to gaze into the distance. Her proper left arm is held straight and thrust out stiffly behind her. Two filled bung holes appear in her front; at the rear, an iron bracket is affixed within a crevice chiseled into her torso.

Artist unidentified.
Label TextAlthough the carving is atypically small and its nudity unusual for a figurehead, oral history states that the jaunty girl graced the prow of the Julia B. Merrill, a three-masted, 200-ton, Great Lakes cargo schooner built in 1872 in Wenona, Michigan. In 1910, the vessel was sold to Canadian owners, and in 1931, evidently considered derelict, she was stripped of all salvagable parts and purposely destroyed by fire at Toronto's Sunnyside Amusement Park.
Presumably the vessel was named for a flesh-and-blood Julia B. Merrill, but who she was, how the schooner came to be named for her, and how this little figurehead was intended to reference the real-life Julia are unknown. The girl raises one hand to her forehead, apparently shielding her eyes as she gazes intently over the bright, reflective water. Her other arm extends stiffly behind, seemingly blown back by the force of the wind or the swift forward motion of the figure. Her cap is pushed to the back of her head, a tassel extending from the button on top of it.

ProvenanceEvidently the object was acquired with the story that it had served as a figurehead on the Julia B. Merrill, built in Wenona, Michigan, in 1872. If accurate, how and when the figurehead was removed and who owned it subsequently, prior to AARFAM's vendor, are unknown.

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