The Figurehead Archives
Built up during a period of over 40 years the full Figurehead Archive can be divided into two quite distinctive areas of research, the first and 
perhaps most important are the photographic representations of Ships Figureheads, both on and off the vessels, plus a number of other Maritime Woodcarvings, such as Stern Board Carvings, and Cats Heads, this is built up from historic Black and White prints taken from the early 1900’s until the late 1950’s, to more contemporary prints in colour, and now digital images.
The Archive also has an extensive collection of colour slides from both private and public collections around the world, many show Figureheads that have been lost due to war, fire, neglect, or are no longer on public display or form part of private collections.
In many ways it has been possible to study the life of individual carvings over a long period of time, looking at both historic black and white photos and more contemporary prints showing before and after restoration or damage, at the moment the photographic collection stands at around 45,000 images, including slides, photographs and digital images, with new items added almost daily.
The second part of the Figurehead Archive is a library of over 800 books and publications on the subject of Ships Figureheads, Maritime, Woodcarvings, Maritime Antiques including a large number of magazines, newspaper articles and cuttings from the 1850’s to the present day from all around the world. As with the photographic collection the bibliography material is being constantly added to building a collection and archive of international importance.
Richard Hunter,
Figurehead Historian.
The Warship Figureheads of Portsmouth
By David Pulvertaft
Illustrated by Kevin Dean
With a foreword by HRH The Princess Royal.
REVIEWED by Richard Hunter Figurehead Historian.
Charles Miller Ltd
Auctioneer of fine figureheads and other nautical treasures,
Charles Miller
Jenny LindThe Mystery of the Nightingale’s FigureheadJust over twelve years ago in the Swedish countryside just outside Gothenburg a local Antiques dealer and his friend made a remarkable discovery, a local |
Ship’s FigureheadsBy Hans Jurgen Hansen and Clas Broder Hansen Almost a Lost ArtIn the late summer of 1999, at a workshop in the South Devon village of HOLSWORTHY near Exeter, the culmination of just over five and a half months of arduous and hard work was coming to a satisfactory conclusion, Richard Barnett a local Devon woodcarver with an International reputation and gift for carving the unusual, was putting the finishing touches to a vast replica figurehead for the British Naval Frigate HMS TRINCOMALEE under restoration at the Jackson Dock, Hartlepool in the North East, few carvers in the World are fortunate enough to be given such a fascinating and in many ways unique opportunity to demonstrate an almost lost skill and art, as to replicate a figurehead of this size and importance. |
farmer had what he called a scarecrow for sale, and would they be interested in buying it, the dealer was Karl-Eric Svardskog his friend Gunter, the scarecrow would turn out to be a beautiful Ships Figurehead in the form of a young woman, a deal was made with the farmer, leaving Karl-Eric and Gunter to make the arrangements to move her out of the farmers barn, back to Karl-Eric home in Gothenburg, once this relatively short journey had been made, a more complex and arduous journey of research and discovery would occupy Karl-Eric for the next decade or more, a journey he is still on.
This very interesting book is almost a photographic essay on the Worlds surviving Ships Figureheads with a feast of over 100 illustrations both black and white and full page colour images of Naval and Merchant carvings taken from the collections of Museums around the World, with a selection of carvings that have been fortunate enough to survive the visitations of a hard working life at sea, situated as they are high above the pounding sea, in all weathers, many have been tragically removed from the scenes of great maritime disasters, others less dramatically disregarded when the vessel had unfortunately outlived it’s working life.
Just published a gallery of Figurehead images by Richard Hunter , click here to visit the site...
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