Whale Bone Whale
Hand carved whale bone sperm whale from French Polynesia for the Smile on Saturday challenge: White.
Though the craftsperson who carved this did not say it was supposed to be a representation of Moby Dick the factious white sperm whale and the main antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby-Dick," I have named this carving "Moby Dick" and he resides in an honored place in my "cabinet of curiosities." Melville based the character on a real-life albino sperm whale named Mocha Dick. Mocha Dick lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author J. N. Reynolds published an account of the whale in "Mocha Dick, or The White Whale of the Pacific," printed in The Knickerbocker in 1839.
Whale Bone Whale
Hand carved whale bone sperm whale from French Polynesia for the Smile on Saturday challenge: White.
Though the craftsperson who carved this did not say it was supposed to be a representation of Moby Dick the factious white sperm whale and the main antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby-Dick," I have named this carving "Moby Dick" and he resides in an honored place in my "cabinet of curiosities." Melville based the character on a real-life albino sperm whale named Mocha Dick. Mocha Dick lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author J. N. Reynolds published an account of the whale in "Mocha Dick, or The White Whale of the Pacific," printed in The Knickerbocker in 1839.