Annabel Dover wrote:
Dear Sir/ Madam
I was in the Fitwilliam museum yesterday and was looking at your big owl. He is a punchbowl cracked by an earthquake in San Fransisco- is that right?Please can you tell me more about it?
All the very best
Annabel Dover
Dear Annabel Dover,
It is not correct that this punchbowl was cracked an earthquake in San Francisco, and I hope that you weren’t told this by a member of the Museum’s staff. If yes, please let me know and I will make sure that they are given the true story.
This owl was made by Wallace Martin in 1903, and it remained in his studio until after his death in 1923, probably because of the crack. It was sold by Sotheby’s, in London on 24 October, 1924, ‘The whole remaining stock of finished pieces of the Martin factory, the property of R.W. Martin Esq. (deceased). Sold by order of the administrator’, lot 68; and was bought by the ceramics dealer, Cyril Andrade for Dr Glaisher for £25.
The incorrect story about our owl seems to have come about because Wallace Martin is said to have made a punch bowl in the shape of an giant owl in 1893 for the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, a literary club founded in 1872 which has an owl as its emblem, and still exists. His first attempt is said to have been cracked, and another was made and sent (at least that is the story as printed). It is thought that this owl perished in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. A club member whom I met, when he came here on a summer school in the 1980s, tried to find out more about it, but was unable to trace a record of its purchase. There are at least two other large owls known, but not exactly like the Fitzwilliam’s. As our owl very clearly has the date 1903 on it, it clearly is not the one mentioned.
Yours sincerely,
Julia Poole
Keeper
Department of Applied Art
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Cambridge, CB2 1RB
