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Ship's Figurehead: Minnehaha
No image number on slide

Ship's Figurehead: Minnehaha

Date1856
Artist William B. Gleason (active by 1847; d. 1886)
OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, Boston
MediumPaint on pine (no evidence of microscopic analysis in file)
DimensionsOverall: 93 x 22 1/2 x 32 1/2in., 202.5lb. (236.2 x 57.2 x 82.6cm, 91.9kg)
Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Object number1932.704.1
DescriptionA heavily-restored ship's figurehead of a woman wearing Indian-style attire with some fanciful elements and mounted on a modern replacement carved plinth. She wears three strands of large beads around her neck, the two upper painted blue, the lower green. She wears two bracelets of the same beads on each arm, one at the wrist and one just above or below the elbow. She wears a short-sleeved top that is red with green trim. She wears a gold-fringed red blanket thrown over her proper R shoulder and, in front, tucked beneath a 4 1/2-inch wide belt. The belt is painted orange with white fringe or edging at top and bottom and has large, raised bosses on it that are painted, alternately, green and white. The ends of the belt are tabbed, or oval in shape, and overlap one another along her proper R side.
Her hair is long, painted black, and flows down her back to her waist. On her head, she wears a green, gold-edged band that comes to a point over her forehead. Her skirt is blue and falls to mid-calf, with three tiers at the back, each of the two upper tiers trimmed with gold fringe. Trim at the bottom of her skirt (from the bottom up) is a band of gold-red-gold, topped by red zig-zag ornament. Along her proper L side, a flapped bag hangs by her side, the drooping folds of the blanket obscuring how it is attached to her. The bag's strap is red and gold, the bag green with incised fleur-de-lis-like ornamentation and with red and white bands of trim at the edges. She wears side-fringed leggings. (As of 19 February 2008, these remain misleadingly painted a flesh color, but conservation over-painting is expected to be done before December 2008). Her moccasins are green with white trim on the down-turned cuffs and with ab incised starburst-like decoration on the vamps. The moccasins are slightly puckered around the edges of the vamps. Around each ankle is a coil or roll bearing carved wrinkles or folds as if in the representation of fabric or leather.

Label TextSeveral vessels named Minnehaha were built in the mid nineteenth century, but based on the attire shown on this figure, the carving is believed to have been made for the 1695-ton, three-decked, clipper ship built by Donald McKay for Kendall & Plympton and launched at Boston March 22, 1856. Period newspaper accounts name William B. Gleason as McKay's figurehead carver.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "Hiawatha," based on legends of the Ojibway Indians, was first published November 10, 1855, achieving immediate success. Its heroine, Minnehaha, was further popularized by the acclaimed English actress, Julia Bennett Barrow (1827-?), whose numerous recitations from the poem packed theaters on both sides of the Atlantic. Barrow's garb for these dramatizations was generally credible Native American-style attire for the period, although some details, such as the gold fringe and configuration of the back of her skirt, appear to have been fanciful. In reviewing a performance in Boston in 1856, one newspaper insisted that Barrow "looks the Indian maiden to the life," illustrating its story with an engraving by Aaron R. Hill that likely derived from a photograph of the costumed actress. Either the same or another, similar, full-length photograph was "to be used for modelling the figure-head of Donald McKay's new ship, named after Longfellow's heroine." The quote, taken from another issue of the same paper, offers interesting and rare insight into the role of photography in figurehead carving post 1839, when photography was first introduced in America.

Both the poet and the actress spoke at the "liberal entertainment" shipbuilder McKay provided for the crowds who attended the launch of his new vessel. The two celebrities harvested most of the publicity awarded the event, with only the last sentence in one lengthy story mentioning the figurehead carver. Revealing the disparity then perceived between art and craft, the paper noted that Gleason's figurehead was "a fine piece of work, evincing much taste, and rising to the dignity of art."

Gleason and his brother, Samuel W. Gleason, Jr., worked with their father, creating ornamentation for many leading shipbuilders of the day in Boston and elsewhere in New England. Soon after joining the family firm in 1847, William was acknowledged as its most talented carver. A local paper called him "devotedly attached to his profession" and possessing a "more refined taste in execution than is common to carvers." In 1854, he took over the family shop, but he also branched out into furniture carving, and by 1870, he was primarily engaged in the furniture business.






ProvenanceDonald McKay's Minnehaha wrecked in December 1867 off Baker's Island. (There are several Baker's Islands, including one NE of Marblehead, Mass; however, several accounts cite the island relevant to McKay's Minnehaha as being located in the South Pacific).
The circumstances by which the ship's figurehead survived the wreckage and reappeared as follows are unknown: Found in the Virgin Islands (specific location undocumented) by Max Williams (1874-1927), a collector/dealer in prints, ship models, and marine relics; sold to Mr. and Mrs. Elie Nadelman, Riverdale, NY; sold to Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; in 1932, sold to AARFAM's donor, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Exhibition(s)