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Article: William Rush's Indian Trader.(1790's merchant ship figurehead)
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- December 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1791 the merchant ship William Penn sailed from Philadelphia for London. Its figurehead, named the Indian Trader, had been carved by William Rush, who is noted today as the first American-born professional sculptor. [1] According to the antiquarian John Fanning Watson (1779-1860), the figurehead "excited great observation" when the ship arrived at its destination. [2] After many more transatlantic voyages the William Penn was sold somewhere in Europe in 1802, [3] and the figurehead presumably was either destroyed or left to rot, which was the fate of most early American ship carvings.
In 1985 the figurehead depicting an American Indian shown in Plates I and ...