In article <v01530500af96923be286@[203.17.98.47]>,
Peta Landman  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>In 1988, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, exhibited a chair
>fashioned from a whale's vertebra (117x123x72 cms) in a folk art
>exhibition.
>The chair was from the National Trust of Australia's Western Australian
>branch. The curator of this exhibtion was John McPhee.
>
>Michael Bogle
>Hyde Park Barracks Museum
>Queens Square
>Sydney Australia 2000
>
>>Dear Museum-Lers,
>>
>>We were sent from someone in the NE USA (Maine) a large bone definitely
>>adapted as a hanging plant holder.  The vertebrate paleontologist
>>identified it as a whale vertebra.  What we would like to know is:
>>
>>Is this a common adaptation of a whale bone? Or does this represent an
>>unique occurence of an imaginative person?  Has anyone ever seen one
>>before and/or do any museums have them in their collections?
>>
>>Thank you very much in advance.
>>
>>Julie Golden
>>Curator of Paleontology
>>Department of Geology
>>University of Iowa
>>Iowa City, IA  52242
>>
---
There is a (garden?) seat made from whale vertebrae, intervertebral
disks and rib-bones on display at the Town Docks Museum in Hull,
England. It does not look at all comfortable!

It is described briefly in Chapter 5 of "Scrimshaw: the art of the
whaler" by Janet West and Arthur G. Credland (Hutton Press; Beverley,
Yorkshire; 1995; ISBN 1 872167 72 1) and a photo of one vertebra,
carved with a grotesque face, is on the back cover. Other uses for
whale vertebrae mentioned here include chopping blocks and paving
"stones" - the latter at Monterey, California.  No mention of plant
pots, however.
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Martin H Evans   e-mail: [log in to unmask]            --Sun  97-05-11
                 111 High Street, Linton, Cambridgeshire  CB1 6JT, UK
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