VERY RARE Superb Org Paint 1880 NEW JERSEY DOWITCHER SHOREBIRD Wood Duck Decoy
VERY RARE Superb Org Paint 1880 NEW JERSEY "DOWITCHER" SHOREBIRD Wood Duck Decoy. ANTIQUE, ORIGINAL THROUGH-HEAD, HARDWOOD BILL. "FEEDING-POSED", SOLID CEDAR, WOOD DECOY. NEW JERSEY (Coastal New Jersey).
This Decoy Was Hunted Over and From Coastal New Jersey By The Market Gunners That Shot Shorebirds For Their Livelihood!! EXCEPTIONAL & THICK 100% ORIGINAL PAINT with a AWESOME, BEAUTIFUL, HAND-BURNISHED PATINA! "H" MAKER and/or RIG MARKS on BOTH SIDES! SUPERB CRAZING to 100% ORIGINAL PAINT, NO EYES -and- SEVERAL SHOT MARKS that LOOK AWESOME! THROUGH-HEAD NOTCHED HARDWOOD, REPLACEABLE BILL (But This Decoy Has Most Likely the Original & Very Neat Bill)!
OUTSTANDING PATINA with EXCEPTIONAL 100% ORIGINAL PAINT with SUPERB ANTIQUE CRAZING! Superb Structural Condition & Notched, Inletted Hardwood, Separately Carved Bill that is as Tight as the Day It Was Made! Short-Billed Dowitcher is a Very Scarce Species!
All Painting to The Entire Decoy Was Done Wet-on-Wet including the Black, Dark Grey, Light Grey & White! This Vintage, Nicely Formed 134 Year-old, Very Nicely Carved and Styled Dowitcher, Solid-Cedar Wood Shorebird decoy was hand painted and carved by either an Accomplished New Jersey Carver Like Nathan Rowley Horner or Made by a New Jersey Carver with Immense skill, Exacting Craftsmanship and precise Paint Brush work! New Jersey's earliest form of tourism involved the guiding to and of hunting parties on South Jersey's rich tidal bays, salt marsh ponds, clean streams and fast rivers. And a great many of these Victorian era gunners eagerly sought out the decoys that were made in the Egg Harbor and south Jersey area. Uge pine forests, vast coastal cedar stands, sweeping marshes and unpolluted waters saw the area grow into a major hub for deer hunting, salt water fishing, clamming, shorebird hunting and waterfowl hunting and to the degree that it had few equals.
The advent of the sink box and market hunting helped dictate the design and construction of the "dugout" Jersey style decoys in the area because of its limited capacity and weight constraints. In addition to the sink boxes, the area had a long history of modestly sized gunning boats and thus the decoys needed to be hollow and very rarely over-sized.
Superb NATHAN ROWLEY HORNER Shorebirds Pictured are Incredible Yellowlegs! Like many of the carvers from the earliest carvers in the mid to late 1800's, Coastal New Jersey carvers could capture the essence and "attitude" of a bird so that their poses would mimic their wild kin by creating turned heads, feeders, runners, drinkers and other realistic configurations to successfully lure live birds. But most, as in the case of this decoy, it was fastest and easiest to make a straight, forward looking decoy with a basic paint job and quite often painted, shoe-button, tack or no eyes. Decoy makers used to be subsistence level clammers, hunters and fishermen that made whatever it took to lure wild shorebirds within gunning range. The decoys were not looked at as an art piece back then, they were looked at as an integral part of keeping their family fed by living off the land. Native Americans used to prop up dead birds to attract fowl. The 1800's "market hunters" were so successful in setting up wooden carvings to bait seashore birds, they nearly decimated many species of waterfowl and shorebirds to the point of extinction. This Pictured Decoy Has Awesome Relief Carved Wing Outlines and Mortised in Bill!The body of this decoy is carved from one piece of cedar and is nicely contoured and nicely formed from a single piece of wood. The bill is awesome and it was carved and attached with the precision of a fine craftsman. The bill goes through the so that it could have easily been replaced if broken. The bill was carved with one end being formed into a 3/8 wide blunt end almost like a hand-made wooden nail that was mortised into a hole curved into and completely through the head. The other end is very pointed.
This inletted bill was intricately carved and this appears to be the original bill, which is awesome to have on any old shorebird decoy. It is also a great thing to have on a decoy like this since the bill itself is long and thin and would have been susceptible to breaking. It was breaking in mind when these early craftsman made these inserted bills as it would be fairly easy to carve a new one and simply replace it. The reason that the hole for the bill to be inserted goes all of the way through the head is that it would be easy to get that portion of a broken bill out by simply tapping it out from the front.The bill itself was carved wonderfully like a hand-made wooden spike. Like I say, an awesome thing is that this bill appears to be original and it is as tight and intact as the day that this neat shorebird decoy was made.
This decoy is one solid piece of cedar for the body, a hardwood was used for the bill and the stand or base and the dowel leg is included as it is fitted perfectly to the hole in the bottom of the bird. When assembled on the provided stand this Short-Billed Dowitcher is beautiful and looks awesome from any direction when turned on the awesome base. It is kind of hard to tell from the photos, but if you use the zoom feature in the template you will see many of the original and awesome brush strokes from the day this decoy was carved and painted. The coat of old, lead-based or oil-based paint is mostly intact and you can see how thick it was applied in several areas where the original final paint finish is worn to the wood and burnished to a shine by hand oils, etc. The Decoy has Beautifully blended Warm Greys, Dark Grey and Black or Very Dark Brown that appears to have been applied Wet-on-wet and also has a Somewhat Feathered Appearance.It Looks like the entire decoy was painted with a wet-on-wet technique and then allowed to dry before some of the last paint was added. All of the painting appears to have been done with a lead-based old marine paint that was allowed to thicken and then sculpted on.
This decoy is symmetrically carved and painted and it is in excellent original condition with a perfect, mostly likely original bill that is tight and intact as the day that this decoy was made well over a century ago. If you like to collect old gunning birds that show some of the scars from being gunned over, this really would make a perfect decoy for you. It is quite remarkable that this decoy has retained so much of its original paint, which is in great part due to the nice coat of paint that the maker afforded this nice decoy and the protection of the temperature and light-controlled collections that it has been in since the day it was retired almost.The Hole in the bottom where this decoy was stuck on a dowel and into the sandy beach for gunning is in perfect original condition with no cracking or chipping around the edge whatsoever. This decoy has the carver and/or owner's "H" rig marks on both sides and it is just a remarkable and beautiful aspect of this decoy and it certainly classes this antique decoy up a bit! In my opinion, the most desirable and unique aspect of this rare and awesome shorebird decoy is the through-head bill.
The hole that was made completely through the head so that a broken bill could be easily removed and replaced is excellent. This through head bill is 3-3/8 long and it goes almost all of the way through the hole in the head and you can see from the back of the head where it ends up with the blunt end. Here is the truly most superb part of the decoy and the bill. Hence, when this one piece bill is inserted it is snug and the bill portion itself looks realistic as it is contoured perfectly like a shorebird in the wild, although most of the paint has worn off, which actually adds to the aura of this old shorebird and exposes the grain of the hardwood that was used.
It is just an awesome bill so I strongly encourage you to use the zoom function in the photo are of this listing. A Smooth-Flowing New Jersey Yellowlegs! The top and sides are awesome and flow perfectly into the carved lines of the head. NEAT DETAIL AND APPEARANCE BY USING A HAND-MADE WOODEN SPIKE NAIL FOR A DECOY'S BILL!!
The Bill, How it Was Made and How It Looks is Just Amazing and it Looks Exceptional and Very Antique!! But it it surely is, as this beautiful bird was carved to hunt over more than 130 years ago! A Superb Lloyd Parker Yellowlegs! This decoy is as solid as the day it was made and although it saw its share of being hunted over, it is in remarkable condition and it looks like it could be hunted over today.
It is in perfect structural condition and obviously shows the type of wear and tear these little decoys got in both the late 1800's and early 1900's. There is typical rubbing from use to all of the high points on this antique hunting tool, but as you can see from the close-up photos that the decoy almost has a gorgeous surface to it from the thick original paint and also from the caramelizing and crazing the Paint has accrued over the last century and a quarter. This nice and very rare Short-billed Dowitcher shorebird decoy was carved life-size and measures 11-1/4" long x 1-3/4" wide x 7 tall and weighs a manageable 6-1/2 ozs. With the stand the entire piece measures 9 tall. This is an awesome "Feeding-Posed" Shorebird with excellent patina and in very good condition and displays as an awesome 130 year old piece of history and really does command attention. Show off your items with Auctiva's Listing Templates. The item "VERY RARE Superb Org Paint 1880 NEW JERSEY DOWITCHER SHOREBIRD Wood Duck Decoy" is in sale since Saturday, March 19, 2016. This item is in the category "Sporting Goods\Hunting\Vintage Hunting\Duck Decoys". The seller is "gjoldan" and is located in Romeo, Michigan. This item can be shipped worldwide.