Additional Images

Provenance:

Collected by Lieut. George Thornton Emmons (1852-1945)
Purchased from the above by Denver Art Museum, Denver CO, 1937
Leslie Hindman Auctions, Chicago, Il, 2018
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Lot 27 is an early and much-used fishing club with significant signs of handling and wear. Such clubs were a necessary tool on the Northwest Coast, where hunters pursued both seals and large fish such as halibut, the latter of which could be dangerous to handle in an open boat if not quickly subdued.

Notable on the present club is the smooth surface of the handle, which is substantially burnished from use. This club was field collected by the important early collector Lt. George Thornton Emmons (1852-1945). It was acquired by the Denver Museum of Art in 1937, though deaccessioned in 2017.[1]

An anthropologist and ethnographer, Lt. Emmons was perhaps the most important field collector of Northwest Coast art. Stationed in Sitka, Alaska, Emmons worked primarily among the Tlingit and Tahltan, becoming a well-known and respected figure in the communities in which he lived and worked. During his time among the Tlingit, Emmons compiled research for a major book on the Tlingit which was published posthumously in 1991 as the The Tlingit Indians.

Over his career, Emmons collected over 11,000 objects, including some of the most important works of Tlingit art surviving today. The majority of pieces which he collected are housed in the collections of public museums including the American Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum in Chicago.[2]

[1] Personal correspondence with the Denver Museum of Art, 8 June 2017.
[2] George T. Emmons, accessed 18 August, 2026, https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/edan-record/ead_component%3Asova-nmai-ac-001-ref15745