Figurehead
The Nightingale was built to carry passengers "to the World's Fair in London, to which she was, and was most luxuriously fitted out for that purpose."
"Her original name, Sarah Cowles was exchanged for Nightingale in honour of Jenny Lind, "The Swedish Nightingale" who at the time was touring the United States."
Nightingale's Jenny Lind figurehead ended up in the hands of a Swedish antique dealer in 1994. He spent 13 years researching its history. "Svärdskog discovered that the ship had undergone repairs in Kragerö in 1885, during which the figurehead had been removed. He was later told by an inhabitant of the farm on which it was found that a relative had bought the 'scarecrow' in Norway, where it had been taken from a ship. The American statue of the Swedish opera singer had thereby quite by coincidence found its way to Sweden."
"Nightingale’s Jenny Lind and the Great Republic's (1853) eagle are the only two figureheads saved from extreme clipper ships."
Read more about this topic: USS Nightingale (1851)
Famous quotes containing the word figurehead:
“Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)