Sultana' Figurehead
1837-01-01/1837-12-31
South Australian Maritime Museum
Port Adelaide, Australia
The figurehead depicts a Middle Eastern woman or 'sultana' - a Muslim monarch or sultan's consort. Carved from teak, she wears a green and yellow dress with red pantaloons. He black hair is arranged with red ribbons and her hands clasped behind her back.
Figureheads, carved wooden sculptures which ornamented the bow of a sailing ship, embodied the 'soul' of the vessel and were believed to offer the crew protection and safe passage on the seas. They were also used to identify a ship, reflecting its function or paying tribute to a person connected with the vessel. The South Australian Maritime Museum has a collection of seventeen ship’s figureheads - the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. The figureheads were sourced and acquired by Vernon Smith, the Honorary Curator of the Port Adelaide Nautical Museum (from which the current museum evolved) over a period of fifty years. He thoroughly documented his search and as result, most of the figureheads are well provenanced with a recorded chain of ownership. Sultana was wrecked on Troubridge Shoals, off the east coast of Yorke Peninsula, the site of 33 wrecks and groundings.
- Title: Sultana' Figurehead
- Date Created: 1837-01-01/1837-12-31
- Location: Port Adelaide, South Australia
- Provenance: Sultana' was a three masted wooden barque of 349 tons, built in Whitby, England in 1837. There is little information about the cargo vessel’s early voyages. The barque ran aground on Troubridge Shoal on 28 September 1849 carrying a cargo from London destined for Port Adelaide. Despite attempts to set the anchor, the vessel continued to be pummelled by violent seas. At daylight the crew attempted to send a boat for help, but this was wrecked against the side of the larger vessel. The remaining small boat took twenty four hours to reach Port Adelaide. The government schooner 'Yatala' and the brig 'Camilla' were dispatched to assist Sultana immediately following the passing of the bad weather. They were too late. The wreck and its cargo were sold to SA parliamentarian Mr. GM Waterhouse who organized to discharge the cargo into small vessels. Most of the cargo was salvaged and it was hoped that the vessel could be refloated at a later date. This proved impossible following a series of gales in late December and early January that destroyed the hull. Sultana was dismantled and its timbers recycled to build two barges, the 'Sultana' and the 'Mercy', and a cutter. A reef in the Troubridge Shoal was later named after the vessel. The Port Adelaide Nautical Museum's curator discovered the figurehead among the fruit trees of a garden at Glen Osmond in 1936 and bought it from the owner, Mr. E. Phelps, on 15 July 1936, for the sum of two pounds. The figurehead's feet had rotted away, and a new pair of Turkish 'slippers' was commissioned by the museum, This addition has since been removed and is now in storage.
- Rights: History Trust of South Australia, CC-0, photographer: Kylie Macey
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