Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Harpoon, marked "CWM" |
Artist or Maker |
Unknown |
Materials |
Maleable Iron with Manila Rope Seizing |
Dimension Details |
Length: 36 1/2" |
Description |
This darting-gun harpoon, with an attached eye partially wrapped in rope seizing on the blunt shank end, is marked "C.W.M." and "LB" for larboard boat of the whaling ship "Charles W. Morgan." The ship made several bowhead whaling voyages to the sea of Okhotsk in the 1880s and 1890s, around the time that darting guns were most popular. These weapons, invented specifically for arctic whaling, combined a harpoon with a bomb lance, enabling the quick killing of bowhead whales before the whale could reach the refuge of the pack ice. |
Provenance |
Richard A. Bourne Co., Inc., Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 8/17/1971, Lot 257 Purchased by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. (1938-2007), Chester Springs, Pennsylvania (Horace Gordon, Villanova, Pennsylvania, agent), 1971 Gifted to The Dietrich American Foundation, 2007 |
Object Name |
Harpoon |
Object ID |
5.3.HRD.2402 |
Search Terms |
whaling |