We have had a couple of responses regarding “Mystery Artist #6” with the signature “Mateus”. Two different people have responded one mentioning that the work was by her father, the other is in the process of showing her grandfather a picture of the work, noting “…there are a lot of Mateus’s.” We’ll keep you posted as the story unfolds! (original post: https://www.scrimshaw.com/mystery-artist-6-mateus/)
Just in, Isabel has this to say about the scrimshaw pictured to the left:
“My father just turned 84 this month. He is an amazing artist, he sold a lot of it to the USA. At one point the business men that bought it said that it was going to the museum that Bob Barker opened, but I have never followed up on that.” I would love to know how that one was acquired. I used to watch him do the scrimshaw when I was a little girl.
“My father is from Algarve in Portugal…” “…My father does not speak English very well, he used to speak a lot better before he suffered strokes, but even so he still does his art, not scrimshaw only, he stopped doing that when it was against the law to hunt whales.
“In Portugal he made caravels (old sail boats) from bull horn and sold a lot of those as well. He makes knives – the whole thing from the blade to the handle where he has [done] some scrimshaw as well. He now makes flowers from pieces of copper or stainless steel. His creative mind does not stop, even now.”
Thank you Isabel for sharing this and our heartfelt best to your father! So glad he is still creating works of art.
We are curious if the other emailer is related and will post further if anything develops.