"Beast of Prey"
This sculpture was inspired by an archaeological find in Uppland, Sweden from a small limestone carving used for a mold to make a decorative dress pin, dating from the 9th-10th century. To date no full scale dragon heads carved for a Viking ships prow have been unearthed. Examples of their actual appearance must be rendered from existing samples of their reflected imagery from the Viking period finds in jewelry, carved stone and wood.
These intimidating heads were meant to transform their war ships into writhing dragons or sea steeds in appearance, but where not permanently fixed to the war ships prows. In fact these dragon heads where detachable and stored aboard the ships on voyages with no hostile intent, such as traveling with no other intent but simply getting to point “A”. The concept that mounting a dragons head signified traveling with hostile intent during the Viking Age reflects an age old Icelandic law still in effect, which states that their coastline may not be approached with a mounted dragon’s head because it disturbs the land spirits.
In rendering this piece the original 2 dimensional dress pin was recreated in a 3 dimensional scaled down version of the ships dragon head attached to the ships sternpost and mounted in a mast fish design to reintroduce as pure sculpture.
Maple and Beech
$2400.00