figure
- Museum number
- Oc1998,Q.25.a-h
- Description
-
Figure, of a boy(?), of turtle-shell, with vegetable fibre string. Main sections are [a] head (with additional hair), [b] body, [c] leg with attached foot, [d] lower leg with attached foot, [e] arm, [f] lower arm, [g] hand, and [h] part of a fish figure. Additionally, there are four small turtle-shell fragments, of which three have vegetable fibre string attached.
- Production date
- 19thC (prior to 1845)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 14 centimetres (a)
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Height: 20.50 centimetres (a)
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Height: 35 centimetres (b)
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Height: 47.20 centimetres (c)
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Height: 19.50 centimetres (d)
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Height: 30.50 centimetres (e)
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Height: 24.50 centimetres (f)
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Height: 18.80 centimetres (g)
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Height: 27 centimetres (h)
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Width: 20 centimetres (a)
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Width: 14 centimetres (b)
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Width: 7 centimetres (c)
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Width: 8.60 centimetres (d)
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Width: 13.40 centimetres (e)
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Width: 6.50 centimetres (f)
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Width: 11.20 centimetres (g)
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Width: 8.40 centimetres (h)
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Depth: 9.30 centimetres (b)
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Depth: 18.70 centimetres (c)
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Depth: 7.50 centimetres (d)
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Depth: 4.50 centimetres (e)
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Depth: 5.30 centimetres (f)
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Depth: 1 centimetres (g)
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Depth: 1 centimetres (h)
- Curator's comments
- Fraser (1959:63-4) states that circumstantial evidence suggests this may be the mask illustrated in Jukes's 'Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of HMS Fly', London, 1947, Vol. I, p.193:
'In short, all of the documentary and circumstantial evidence except the alleged deposit in the United Service Institution Museum lends weight to the identification of the British Museum figure as that illustrated by Jukes. With the addition of the stylistic evidence, the conclusion seems well-grounded that the Jukes figure and the British Museum effigy are in fact one and the same. If this be true, the figure may well have been deposited in the United Services Institution Museum but remained in private hands until 1912 at which time it was sent in fragmentary condition to the British Museum. There the effigy remained, unrecorded because of its state in an out-of-the-way corner until the postwar reorganization programme brought to light once more this rare and remarkable turtleshell figure from Torres Strait'.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1912 (?)
- Acquisition notes
- Found apparently unregistered in Ethnography Department Oceania collections; given registration number in 1998.
Fraser 1959:63 refers to a shipping tag associated with objects described as 'Torres Sts. tortoise-shell masks, sent by A. Fowler. 124, Knightsbridge, in July 1912. No instructions'. Other museum database records note that Arthur Mountain Fowler was at that address about that time.
If this is the figure collected and illustrated by Jukes (see curatorial comment), his Narrative states: 'Mamoos would go on board with me, taking a large tortoise-shell figure of a boy, three feet high, and very curiously constructed, for which I had no room, but which he sold to Mr Belll for an axe...It is now in the Museum of the United Services Institution'.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1998,Q.25.a-h
