SCRIMSHAW WHALE'S TOOTH ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM SIZER Obverse depicts a full-length portrait of a woman in ...

SCRIMSHAW WHALE'S TOOTH ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM SIZER Obverse depicts a full-length portrait of a woman in Renaissance-like attire, in..
SCRIMSHAW WHALE'S TOOTH ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM SIZER Circa 1835
Obverse depicts a full-length portrait of a woman in Renaissance-like attire, including a large festooned hat, a long scarf and patterned dress with an exaggerated collar. Reverse depicts flowers in a footed compote. Attributed to Sizer by Dr. Stuart M. Frank, Senior Curator Emeritus of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, as indicated in an April 19, 2016 email to the consignor. Length 7.25".
A tooth by William Sizer with a similar portrait of a woman is illustrated in Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved by Stuart M. Frank (Boston: David R. Godine, 2012), fig. 3.1b. In Frank's Scrimshaw and Provenance: A Third Dictionary of Scrimshaw Artists (Mystic, Ct.: Mystic Seaport, 2013), p. 258-259, William Sizer is described as a Franco-Azorean whaleman from New England, who was believed to have been onboard an 1834-1837 voyage of the whaleship L.C. Richmond of Bristol, Rhode Island. He produced a number of outstanding teeth, some of which had portraits of the L.C. Richmond , some of which are signed, and some of which bear similar portraits of women to this example. Sizer, born in 1801 in Chester, Massachusetts, died at sea in 1840 and was buried in Tahiti.
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