Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth
A portrait engraved in a sperm whale tooth circa 1830-1860 presents Captain James Biddle’s “coolness,” his “perseverance and self possession in difficult emergencies”: a dramatic gash splits the tooth-sitter’s chin. The mark evokes his U.S.S. Hornet’s engagement with the H.M.S. Penguin in March 1815...
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ftunivdelaware:oai:udspace.udel.edu:19716/12663 2023-06-11T04:17:06+02:00 Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth Larnerd, Joseph 2013 application/pdf http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12663 unknown University of Delaware http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12663 Thesis 2013 ftunivdelaware 2023-05-01T12:52:41Z A portrait engraved in a sperm whale tooth circa 1830-1860 presents Captain James Biddle’s “coolness,” his “perseverance and self possession in difficult emergencies”: a dramatic gash splits the tooth-sitter’s chin. The mark evokes his U.S.S. Hornet’s engagement with the H.M.S. Penguin in March 1815. After the latter’s surrender, a British sailor fired a musket ball that “struck Captain Biddle’s chin.” Though wounded with “blood flow[ing] profusely,” he quelled his crew’s blood thirst and secured surrender. Biddle’s wound on the tooth and the other artifactual peculiarities it elicits foreground his lauded “co olness” in combat in ways postwar portrayals by Thomas Gimbrede, Charles Willson Peale, and Moritz Furst cannot. Floating churches, lighthouses, and Peale’s The Artist in His Museum (1822) value a self-possession similar to that the tooth extols. These shared significations reveal a network of affect that formal categorizations and object hierarchies may obscure. Working with a variety of historical sources and theories of material culture, I argue that the tooth-portrait provides more than an untutored appropriation of a fine art print; it is a complex representational artifact that partakes in and contributes to a nineteenth-century trope of “coolness.” J. Ritchie Garrison M.A. Winterthur Program in American Material Culture Thesis Sperm whale The University of Delaware Library Institutional Repository Perseverance ENVELOPE(162.200,162.200,-76.800,-76.800) |
institution |
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The University of Delaware Library Institutional Repository |
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ftunivdelaware |
language |
unknown |
description |
A portrait engraved in a sperm whale tooth circa 1830-1860 presents Captain James Biddle’s “coolness,” his “perseverance and self possession in difficult emergencies”: a dramatic gash splits the tooth-sitter’s chin. The mark evokes his U.S.S. Hornet’s engagement with the H.M.S. Penguin in March 1815. After the latter’s surrender, a British sailor fired a musket ball that “struck Captain Biddle’s chin.” Though wounded with “blood flow[ing] profusely,” he quelled his crew’s blood thirst and secured surrender. Biddle’s wound on the tooth and the other artifactual peculiarities it elicits foreground his lauded “co olness” in combat in ways postwar portrayals by Thomas Gimbrede, Charles Willson Peale, and Moritz Furst cannot. Floating churches, lighthouses, and Peale’s The Artist in His Museum (1822) value a self-possession similar to that the tooth extols. These shared significations reveal a network of affect that formal categorizations and object hierarchies may obscure. Working with a variety of historical sources and theories of material culture, I argue that the tooth-portrait provides more than an untutored appropriation of a fine art print; it is a complex representational artifact that partakes in and contributes to a nineteenth-century trope of “coolness.” J. Ritchie Garrison M.A. Winterthur Program in American Material Culture |
format |
Thesis |
author |
Larnerd, Joseph |
spellingShingle |
Larnerd, Joseph Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
author_facet |
Larnerd, Joseph |
author_sort |
Larnerd, Joseph |
title |
Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
title_short |
Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
title_full |
Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
title_fullStr |
Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
title_full_unstemmed |
Captain Biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
title_sort |
captain biddle’s ‘coolness’ commandeers a sperm whale tooth |
publisher |
University of Delaware |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12663 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(162.200,162.200,-76.800,-76.800) |
geographic |
Perseverance |
geographic_facet |
Perseverance |
genre |
Sperm whale |
genre_facet |
Sperm whale |
op_relation |
http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12663 |
_version_ |
1768375941797511168 |