When scrimshaw is mentioned, most people think of carving on sperm whale teeth only. But scrimshaw also includes engravings on skeletal whale bone–such as the jaw bone, called panbone–and ivory from other marine mammals such as walrus. Although scrimshaw is widely associated with nautical themes and designs of the 19th century whaling industry, vintage scrimshaw was also produced as tribal art in many cultures. Today, scrimshaw is recognized as a unique medium in which present-day artists have developed their own modern themes. Scrimshaw reproductions may take several forms. There are - New carvings on genuine ivory or bone with the deliberate intent to create an "antique” - New carvings on genuine ivory or bone sold as signed and dated contemporary art - Clearly marked synthetic museum reproductions and mass marketed - Unmarked synthetic replicas Painstakingly carved deliberate replicas are directed towards the scrimshaw collector and seldom appear in the general market. Pieces of contemporary art and museum copies are usually clearly marked and openly sold for what they are. The biggest problems in the general antiques market are the mass produced synthetic reproduction pieces, such as this item, that can be mistaken for the genuine item. The scrimshaw is a modern reproduction of a typical scrimshaw scene and engraved onto a synthetic substance. It has been created as a decorative piece and is currently displayed as a representation of the craft of scrimshaw.Scrimshaw carved on a non-natural material in the shape of a whale tooth. Engraving depicts a grizzly bear with two cubs next to a fallen tree. Nonewarrnambool, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, craft work, carving on bones, whale bone carving, engraving, scrimshaw, carving, reproduction scrimshaw

When scrimshaw is mentioned, most people think of carving on sperm whale teeth only. But scrimshaw also includes engravings on skeletal whale bone–such as the jaw bone, called pan bone and ivory from other marine mammals such as walrus. Although scrimshaw is widely associated with nautical themes and designs of the 19th century whaling industry, vintage scrimshaw was also produced as tribal art in many cultures. Today, scrimshaw is recognized as a unique medium in which present-day artists have developed their own modern themes. Scrimshaw reproductions may take several forms. There are - New carvings on genuine ivory or bone with the deliberate intent to create an "antique” - New carvings on genuine ivory or bone sold as signed and dated contemporary art - Clearly marked synthetic museum reproductions and mass marketed - Unmarked synthetic replicas This scrimshaw work is done on a sperm whale's tooth. It is one of two pieces by artist Gary Tonkin in Flagstaff Hill’s collection. Sperm whales can live for 60 or even 70 years, so the tooth could be quite old. It came from the whaling station in Albany, Western Australia, which ceased processing whales in 1978 and is now a whaling museum. The two works were commissioned by Flagstaff Hill in the 1980s. Tonkin could spend from a few days to a few months in intensive work on each piece of scrimshaw. He is a world-renowned Master Scrimshander and a Fellow of the Australian Society of Marine Artists (FASMA), and lives in Albany, Western Australia. Gary Tonkin, FASMA – Tonkin was born in 1949 in Portland, Victoria, and grew up there with a history of whaling and related industries. He moved to Albany in southwest WA in 1971 and worked as an Export Meat inspector for the Federal Government. This small town also had a historical connection to whaling. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Station was still operating, and there were even three whaling ‘chaser’ vessels at the old jetty. In 1975, his employment now permanent, Tonkin bought an old cottage near the bay, purchased some whales’ teeth, and began learning the sailors’ art of scrimshaw, combining this with his artistic skills and knowledge of history. His job gave him access to buy as many whale teeth as he could afford, straight from the whaling station. Tonkin gained further marine knowledge as he sailed on the schooner ‘Esperance’ from Fremantle to Mauritius in 1988. He watched the sailors at work and experienced the rough and stormy sea conditions first-hand. Tonkin later visited whaling museums, galleries and libraries in England and America to gather reference materials and information on all aspects of whaling and scrimshaw. In 1993 he was Commissioned to engrave six large whale teeth, from the Albany whaling station, for the USA Gallery at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. This work is now in the museum’s permanent collection. From that time, Tonkin began working full-time as a Scrimshander. Tonkin’s work is now in galleries and museums in America and Australia, as well as in private collections. He is the founder of the Albany Maritime Heritage Association and was the inaugural President. In the 1990s he actively and successfully campaigned for the preservation of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Station in Albany, which is now Whale World, an open-air whaling museum. His continuing work as a Scrimshander contributes to the preservation of the art of scrimshaw and the history of whaling. This scrimshaw represents the ancient craft of scrimshaw, associated with mariners in the whaling trade in the early 19th century. The work is also Nationally significant for being created by world-renowned Scrimshander, Gary Tonkin, from Albany, Western Australia. Scrimshaw; whale tooth carved with an image of two whaleboats hauling a dead whale back to the mother ship. Inscribed Title and signature of artist Gary Tonkin.Inscribed "Bringing in the whale". Signature "G Tonkin"flagstaff hill maritime museum and village, warrnambool, great ocean road, shipwreck coast, maritime museum, flagstaff hill, perth, whaling, whales, australia, scrimshaw, scrimshander, gary tonkin, g tonkin, bone, tooth, craft, albany, western australia, cheynes beach whaling station, whale world, portland, engraving, maritime art, sperm whale's tooth, albany whaling station, albany whaling museum

The ship “Ellis” started life as the Clementina, launched in America in 1781. The vessel was first listed in Lloyd's Register in 1784 and under this name began serving as a slave ship sailing out of Liverpool. A Lloyd’s database records of slave-trading voyages by vessels from Liverpool makes it clear that Clementina was a slave trader. The next year Captain J. Elworthy sailed her to West Central Africa and St Helena. He transported his slaves to South Carolina. Then in 1785 Elworthy gathered slaves in the Bight of Biafra and the Gulf of Guinea Islands for delivery to Jamaica. In 1786 Bent & Co. purchased the Clementina and renamed her Ellis, presumably after the then owner Ellis Bent. She remained in the slave trade and In 1788 Captain John Ford sailed the now renamed Ellis to the Bight of Biafra and the Gulf of Guinea to gather slaves. He delivered this batch of slaves to the island of Grenada. The next year, 1789 the Ellis was almost completely rebuilt, and from the change in subsequent reports of her cargo loading or (burthen), she was enlarged. In 1791, Captain Joseph Matthews became master and sailed the Ellis to the Gold Coast then delivering his consignment of slaves to the island of St Vincent. During this voyage, some misfortune may have befallen Matthews because records show the Ellis command was transferred to Thomas Given. In 1792, Given sailed to the Bight of Biafra and the Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, again collecting slaves for delivery to Jamaica. There is a parallel record, also for 1793, that the Ellis under the command of Thomas Heart, undertook the same journey and with the same itinerary and cargo. In 1793, Bent & Co. decided to use the Ellis as a privateer with John Levingston as the master. After receiving a letter of "marque” on the 3rd of June 1793, that allowed any armed vessel to commit acts on the high seas which would otherwise have constituted piracy. Thus the Ellis began to operate as a combat ship under the endorsement of the British navy. The Ellis was three times captured first by the French frigate Gracieuse, under the command of Captain Chevillard on 22 July 1793. The French took her into service and renamed her as ”Elise”. Later that summer the Spanish captured her and in November ownership returned to the French who then renamed her the “Esperance”. On the 8th of June 1794, Esperance arrived in Jacmel, Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), from France with the official proclamation of the abolition of slavery. Leger-Felicite Sonthonax was one of the Civil Commissioners of Saint-Domingue and he had already unilaterally proclaimed the island for the French colony the year before amid a slave rebellion and attacks from British and Spanish forces. Ironically, Esperance also brought the news to the Civil Commissioners that the National Convention of France had impeached them on 16th July 1793 and ordered them to return promptly to France. On 8 January 1795, HMS Argonaut, under the command of Captain Alexander John Ball, captured Esperance while she was on the North America station. At this time the Esperance was armed with 22 guns (4 and 6-pounders) and had a crew of 130 men. She was under the command of Lieutenant de vaisseau De St. Laurent and had been out at sea for 56 days from Rochfort, bound for the American Chesapeake Bay area.  The French ambassador to the United States registered a complaint with the President of the United States that Argonaut, by stating that by entering Lynnhaven bay, either before she captured Esperance or shortly thereafter, had violated a treaty between France and the United States. The French also accused the British of having brought the Esperance into Lynnhaven for refitting for a cruise. The British Consul replied that the capture had taken place some 10 leagues offshore as the bad weather had forced Argonaut and her prize to shelter within the Chesapeake area for some days, but that they had left as soon as practicable. Furthermore, Argonaut had paroled her French prisoners on arrival at Lynnhaven, and if she had entered American territorial waters solely to parole her French prisoners no one would have thought that objectionable. Royal Navy Service: Because the Esperance was captured in good order and sailed well, Rear Admiral George Murray, the British commander in chief of the North American station, put a British crew aboard and sent the Esperance out on patrol with HMS Lynx, under the command of John Poo Beresford, on 31st January. On 1st March the two vessels captured the Cocarde Nationale (or National Cockade), a privateer from Charleston, South Carolina, of 14 guns, six swivel cannons and a crew of 80 men. Esperance and the lynx went on to recaptured the ship Norfolk, of Belfast, and the brig George, of  Workington. On 20 July, Esperance, in company with frigates Thetis and Hussar, intercepted the American vessel Cincinnatus, of Wilmington, sailing from Ireland to Wilmington. They pressed many men on board into service, narrowly missing the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who was on his way to Philadelphia. Esperance was formally commissioned in 1795 into the Royal Navy in August under the Command of Jonas Rose. On 4 May 1796 Esperance was sailing in company with HMS Spencer and Bonetta when they sighted a suspicious vessel. Spencer set off in chase while shortly thereafter Esperance saw two vessels, a schooner and a sloop, and she and Bonetta set off after them. Spencer sailed south by south-east and the other two British vessels sailed south-west by west, with the result that they lost sight of each other. Spencer captured the French gun-brig Volcan, while Bonetta and Esperance captured the French schooner Poisson Volant.   The Esperance eventually arrived at Portsmouth on the 3rd of November 1797, the crew was paid off and on 31st May 1798 the Admiralty listed the Esperance for sale and she was sold in June 1798 for £600.The subject scrimshaw is a modern reproduction crudely done of a historic vessel and the scene is believed to be engraved onto a synthetic substance. Scrimshaw art crudely carved into non-natural material in the shape of a tooth. The line artwork is an image of a three-masted sailing ship with a poop deck, and anchors, are coloured black. Inscription is engraved into tooth.Engraved "Man o War Ellis" warrnambool, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, scrimshaw, ellis, esperance, clementina, elise, hms ship, man of war, leter of marque, privateer, slave ship, slavery, ellis bent, american war of inderpendance, marine art, marine artifact, whale tooth, ivory tooth, resin, plastic, craft, engraving, carving

Scrimshaw is regarded as early folk art and is associated primarily with whaling that was opened up in the Pacific at the end of the eighteenth century by sailors mainly from American, English and French vessels. As a result, some of the best scrimshaw from Pacific whales can be found in collections in these countries. Even though sailors must have had plenty of spare time between periods of whaling scrimshaw on whale teeth seems a rarity before the 1830s. One reason may have been the high price paid for whale teeth ivory in this period making scrimshaw on teeth popular only after the market was saturated and the price dropped. The earliest identified engraver of whale teeth is the English whaling master Captain J. S. King who was active between 1817 and 1823. There have been six ships called the Hero in the Royal Navy and this ship was the fourth named Hero, it was a screw-propelled 91-gun and second-rate. In the rating system of the British Royal Navy, this term is used to categorise sailing warships, a second-rate was a ship of the line which by the start of the 18th century mounted 90 to 98 guns on three gun decks. Earlier 17th-century second rates had fewer guns and were originally two-deckers or had only partially armed third gun decks. The Hero was launched in 1858 and sold in 1971. On July 1860 the Prince of Wales embarked onboard HMS Hero, Albert Edward Prince of Wales, was the eldest son of Queen Victoria, and the future King Edward VII, at the time he was then nineteen years of age, and on route to Newfoundland, Canada and the United States on his first state tour. He was the first member of the British royal family to visit North America. In 1860 the Queen had intended to pay a visit to Canada however stress prevented her from travelling. The then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston suggested that “Bertie” the prince of Wales could represent the Queen and on July 10th 1860, Bertie boarded HMS Hero for a tour of Canada and the USA. On July 23rd the ship arrived at Terranova. By the second week of August, the HMS Hero had sailed up the St. Lawrence River and anchored at Quebec. The Prince was successful with Canadian society visiting Quebec and Montreal during his stay. He went on to visit the United States following an invitation by President James Buchanan. His American journey was regarded as a great success. President Buchanan wrote to Queen Victoria: "He “Bertie” has faced a very difficult task for a person his age and his behaviour in all this has been that of his age and position. He has shown himself honourable, Frank and affable and he won the respect of the sensible and wise people". The scrimshaw is believed to be a modern reproduction of a typical scrimshaw scene and engraved very crudely onto a synthetic substance. Scrimshaw art carved into non-natural material in the shape of a whale tooth. The line artwork images of a three-masted, fully rigged ship and an anchor are coloured black. Inscription is engraved into tooth.Engraved "Hero 1870"warrnambool, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, scrimshaw, plastic, resin, replica, prince of wales, british navy vessel, whaling, hms hero, reproduction, carving, engraving