Lot 40
UNIDENTIFIED ARTIST, TLINGIT
Model Totem Pole, 1899

wood, 14.75 x 3 x 2 in (37.5 x 7.6 x 5.1 cm)
inscribed indistinctly, "Lor[i?]n / [???lf] / L [Q?]", inscribed in pencil in an unknown hand, "Juneau / 1899".

Provenance
A Vancouver Collection;
A Private Collection, Toronto.

The carver of this model has taken the opposite approach to the previous example. Here full sculptural depth is the recipe for each of the figures, filling the space completely from front to rear. The back of the top figure, a large bird, is rounded from side to side on the head, the body, and the tail. The lower figures are flattened off on the back side to side. The main bird-like figure has no typical beak, but may represent this artist’s vision of a thunderbird. The lower figures appear to represent a humanoid bear with raised forefeet and at the bottom another mammal, possibly a land otter, also with raised forefeet featuring some fine piercing.

Tlingit carving style in general sculpts figures in or close to being in the round, with some overlaps from figure to figure. The carver of this pole has carried the full round approach farther than many others. Here there is no overlap between figures, and the back is fully rounded out only on the bird figure at top. The two lower images are minimally flattened off on the back, but the heads and projecting limbs are all full 3D sculptural, not relief-carved, creating a dynamic form with lively silhouettes.

Steven C. Brown

Although the inscription is indistinct and incomplete, the second name appears to be “Rudolf,” which is an alternate spelling for the family name of the Tlingit carver James Rudolph (1858-1933), who was a prominent and influential artist in Juneau. It is quite possible then that this pole was carved by a member of the Rudolph family, if not by James himself.

References

For examples of model poles by James Rudolph see Michael D. Hall and Pat Glascock, Carvings and Commerce: Model Totem Poles 1880-2010 (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery / Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011), pp. 88-90.