A Very Special One-of-a-Kind Whaler Made Presentation Working Birdcage, circa 1862, fashioned of whale ivory, whalebone, baleen, wood and wire; an attractive and optical composition, the face side with wire door and clean-out drawer secured by carved bone butterfly locks, a seed drawer with turned bone pull matching lower drawer; 39 geometric inlays of ivory, baleen and tropical woods. The next side having a removable compartment for larger feed, inlaid with a bone apple flanked by ivory and baleen jack on rigging knives, the crest carved with stylized swan’s heads flanked by turned bone finials matching the cage’s four post finials (formerly the ends of a baleen ribbed umbrella.) The lower panel is inlaid with a rectangular bone frame and two apples on either side of a signal flag. The next side with inlaid food chopper and knives, the water feeder side inlaid the same as the opposing side with an apple and a pressed sandwich glass water coop. The bottom inlaid with whale ivory and whalebone compass rose and the initials “EB” and “PL” and the date 1862. A signal flag with a block square center, the maritime signal representing “engines full speed astern.” Ivory peg and square plate feet. Two collection numbers in the drawer. Accompanied by a contemporary table top hanger.
Height 19 ½ in. Width 11 in. Depth 10 ½ in.

Note: It is highly likely that this birdcage was made and presented by either “PL,” Presbury N. Lane, or “ER,” Elisha Babcock, both whaling captains of New Bedford. Below is a list of vessels and voyages by each of these captains and all voyages listed were sailed out of New Bedford Harbor.

Presbury N. Lane
1849 Ship Edward
1854 Ship Mary Wilder
1857 Ship Emily
1866 Ship Ellen Morrison

Elisha Babcock
1855 Ship Rodman
1860 Ship Lydia
1866 Ship Adeline Gibbs

Presbury N. Lane left New Bedford on October 17, 1857 and was whaling in the Pacific returning back to New Bedford May 8, 1861 and did not whale again until 1866 which would put him home in 1862. Elisha Babcock left New Bedford to go whaling in the Pacific on May 16, 1860 and returned to New Bedford on May 17, 1864 which puts him at sea during 1862 the year this birdcage was dated. It is possible that these New Bedford whaling captains were friends and that one or the other made this birdhouse as a gift to the other in 1862 and it was presented at a later date when Captain Elisha Babcock returned in 1864.

Note: In order to facilitate viewing of the inlaid bottom of the bird cage a walnut and iron base has been custom built to lift the birdcage above a mirror built into the stand so the inlay can be viewed without having to constantly lift the birdcage from whatever it is sitting on.

Reference: “Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved/Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum,” by Stuart Frank, Published by David Godine in Association with the New Bedford Whaling Museum 2012. Other Examples of whalebone and wood birdcages appear on pages 268 and 269. Of the five bird cages in the collection only one has a known maker who was captain from the ship Lancaster (1834-1842) – Rodolphus Nye Swift of Acushnet, Mass.