Figureheads And Ship Carving

By Michael Stammers

Concise but comprehensive, this history of figureheads and ship carvings covers the period from ancient Egypt to the present, with emphasis on the great period of decoration between the late sixteenth... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861762429
• ISBN13: 9781861762429
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Chatham
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Book Mostly of the Time of Sail

There was a time before ships became totally functional constructions of steel when individuality brought a soul to the vessel. And often at the bow of the ship was a bit of art that helped to define that soul. This book is on the art and the history of figureheads and other carvings that decorated and personalized ships of the time. It is a magnificant set of photographs and descriptions that give the history of decorations applied to vessels of all kinds. It begins with drawings found of ships in times as far back as the fourth century BC and continues through the present as although the ships they graced are gone, their figureheads remain in museums, monuments in cemetaries, and otherwise preserved. It's easy to imagine the sailing ships of yore with their figureheads as it is impossible to imagine one on the Jahre Viking, a 1,503 foot long oil tanker, or on the modern ships of the navies of the world.