CARVED AND PAINTED WOODEN FIGURE OF THE LITTLE NAVIGATOR Easily the finest example to come on the market in decades, extremely well-...

CARVED AND PAINTED WOODEN FIGURE OF THE LITTLE NAVIGATOR Great Britain, Early 19th Century

Easily the finest example to come on the market in decades, extremely well-carved and detailed and with a wonderful sense of dignity. Used as a ship chandler's shop sign. Curly-haired figure is in full dress naval uniform including a bicorne, a black neck stock, a ruffled shirt, a white vest, a swooping blue cutaway jacket, epaulets, white pants and buckled shoes. He holds an octant in his outstretched arms (octant of a later period) and is standing on an oval plinth. Retains much of its original paint. Height 26".

Another figure by this hand is illustrated in "The Little Men: Carved Shop Signs of the Navigating Instrument Seller" by Philip C.F. Smith, published in the American Neptune , Vol. XXXIV No. 3, July 1974, fig. M.

The carving is English but the figure was used in the German port city of Hamburg, per Museum fur Hamburgische Geschicte.

Provenance:

Trevor Philip & Sons, London. Purchased at the 2000 Grosvenor House Art & Antique Fair. Illustrated in the Fair's catalog, p. 50-51. (A copy of the catalog accompanies the lot.)

The Collection of Paul Vardeman.

Condition: Well preserved. Octant not of the same period, as noted.

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