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Signed/Dated Bearn, France 1945 POW Ship in Bottle Antique Folk Art Tramp Whimsy
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Signed/Dated Bearn, France 1945 POW Ship in Bottle Antique Folk Art Tramp Whimsy
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Digging Deeper Into The Closet ... If you haven't noticed the past few days, there's a trend here -- I'm pulling some really nice ships in bottles out of the closet and posting them at cheap auction prices rather than buy-it-now (cf. eBay item no. 330626146161) . I started this particular ship in bottle off as a straight auction with a ridiculously low starting bid ... but there are no bids yet, and I'm going to revise the listing and add a buy-it-now price. Why? Because I spent a full day researching the history of this little sib and came to the conclusion it is worth every penny of the Buy-it now price. After reading the text below, perhaps someone will agree with me. This is an amazing little sib that will enhance any private collector's collection of sibs. If you don't have a signed and dated POW ship in bottle -- this is your chance!
Signed and Dated ... The Bearn, France Connection ... Most collectors of antique ships in bottles know that it's more common than not to have no signatures or dates inside a bottle. I could never understand why. If you have the patience to make a sib and you are proud of your work, why not put a small signature and date inside? Yet rarely did the artists do so. Which leads us to play Sherlock Holmes in order to place a particular sib in historical context -- where and when it was made, etc. This particular sib is signed and dated by the artist. The inscription is just below where the neck of the bottle is broken, and it's not easy to read ... but I believe it says, "Bearne, 1945, 5th mos." I'm pretty clear about the "Bearne" and "1945" ... far less certain of "5th Mos." So, class ... (is everyone paying attention?) ... At least we know WHEN this sib was made. 1945. And that leads us to look further for more evidence of the bottle. Let's think about this ... 1945 ... the end of World War II ... the sib is obviously from Europe. With a date like that, my first hunch is that the sib was made by a prisoner of war. Think about it -- the world was in chaos as the war in Europe was winding down. Retreating German troops looted, burned and destroyed much of what was in their path as they returned to the Fatherland. Advancing Allied troops also looted German occupied zones. It's pretty obvious to me that there weren't a lot of people sitting down to casually make a bleepin' ship in bottle -- unless they had all the time in the world because they were interred prisoners of war who had nothing better to do. (Sibs were often made to be traded for cigarettes, candy and privileges.) Thus, we not only have the date, we likely have the person -- an interred soldier and POW. Now let's turn our attention to the place this sib was made. The inscription actually appears to read "Bearne" rather than Bearn. But I'm almost positive this reference is to the famous French province of Bearn, located in southwest France, adjacent to the Pyrenees. You've heard of Bearnaise sauce? The term comes from Bearn, France. That region is also adjacent to Spain, and my research shows me that "Bearne" is the Spanish spelling variation for Bearn, France. Check out: /wiki/Bearne (It's in Spanish, but you can read that it makes reference to the French province of Bearn. If you do the Google search, you'll even find a French warship named "Bearn" that was used to ferry aircraft during World War II. Sooooo ... all of the foregoing research leads me to the following conclusions. It's possible this sib was made by a POW from Spain. It's also possible that the soldier who was interred there didn't know how to spell Bearn and that he just added an e. As I noted before, the inscription is hard to read -- there appears to be an "e" at the end of Bearn -- but, could that e mean something else? Maybe. That's about as far as we can go with this. Speculative? Absolutely ... but most of the evidence is pretty strong. For example, further evidence that this was made by a POW is the bottle itself -- with its broken neck. It's more likely that a POW had to make do with whatever bottles he could fi... 
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