Lot 10
Robert Ridley (1855-1934), Haida
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Alberta
Note:
A fisherman and noted hunter of sea otters in Masset, Robert Ridley was also a skilled woodworker. He built the schooner Queen Charlotte and for a brief period was its captain before returning mid-life to the career of a fisherman. When his health began to decline late in life he supplemented his income by carving, making some of his first model totem poles in argillite. Marius Barbeau notes in his 1957 publication Haida Carvers in Argillite that Ridley’s work was noted by contemporaries as not always as neat as his fellow carvers, but was revered for being “done in the old way” made with the use of cutting tools, and without sandpaper or other abrasives like more modern carvers.[1]
[1] Marius Barbeau, Haida Carvers in Argillite, (Ottawa: Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources, National Museum of Canada, 1957), 210.
Further Reading:
https://www.waddingtons.ca/art-of-the-model-totem-pole/