Yet another Inuit (?) seal carving . . .

Obviously every artist has his/her own style and manner of depicting the subject. What can I say? Some artists make nose-like beaks and put corners in the eyes.

 

IT'S ARTWORK.........not made to exacting standards...........

And the bird in question....is no masterwork !

 

here are a couple of Inuit otter sculptures for comparative purposes :

 

Absolutely love that second one.

 

And, just for fun, here is a transformation piece of a shaman/otter:

 

Any idea what, if anything, would have been held in the round gap between his feet?

 

There is nothing missing from the piece, that's just how he did the flippers. The bigger question is what exactly is he smoking?

 

I am not find any evidence that they (the old ones) did smoke - at least not until they were introduced to tobacco by traders.
I also admit that I haven't spent hours searching either.

 

Here is a picture by Richard Harrington from the Padlei Diaries taken in the early 1950's (iirc).

 

I know they did end up smoking, I just didn't see any documentation that they did until the Europeans showed up.

 

Europeans didn't start smoking until fairly recently either. Inuit pieces tend to depict either the present or the relatively recent past.

 

Ah - good to know.

 

& now for something completely different........one of my favorite transformation carvings.

 

Goodness! What is he turning into?
(I do like it!)

 

Inuit mythology does not include flying seals; however, humanoid-faced birds would be entirely possible, as would a bird in a quirky or humorous posture. Looks more like wings than anything else, to me.....my opinion would be that it is a bird, lying face-up.....
Also, for a time Inuit and others were required to register, and I have seen older Inuit pices signed with those registration numbers. Partial lists are available online. The numbers might refer to those numbers, if they were not specific to the Co-op that handled the item.

 

Thank you allfakes. I have tried in the past to ID the numbers, but without any luck.
But as I said earlier, I still like the little fellow and I guess he will live with me.

 

The only numbers that are used to identify the artists begin with a prefix of E for Eastern arctic or W for Western. Anything else is an inventory number for either the wholesalers or galleries that handled the piece. While recent inventory numbers are easy for the wholesalers to look up, older ones are next to impossible.

 

I don't know for sure............but he can hear you !!!!