Inside Decoys from Shelburne Museum

Canvas Decoys

Shelburne Museum is home to several canvas decoys, which were made by stretching canvas over a wood or metal interior frame. Canvas decoys were a light-weight alternative to carved wood decoys and were easier to transport, particularly for larger decoys such as Canada geese and swans. Larger decoys were a necessity for the rough seas of the North Atlantic, where small decoys could be difficult to see in the turbulent waters, and canvas- covered, or slatted decoys were adapted to obtain size without adding excessive weight.   Some decoy makers stretched canvas over traditional carved wood bodies for aesthetic reasons- the painted canvas gave a more matte appearance when wet and this was thought to be more attractive to ducks.
 
Joel Barber writes that canvas covered decoys originated in a small village on the shores of eastern Massachusetts and surmises that the construction is closely connected to the traditions of ship-building. This method of decoy making was very efficient and utilized available materials with no waste to create large but light-weight decoys of high visibility that were very practical for fowlers.
 
Three of Shelburne’s canvas decoys have been radiographed for this project: a Canada goose by Joseph Whiting Lincoln (canvas over slatted wood frame), a white-winged scoter (canvas over wood frame) by Bert Hunt, and a canvasback (canvas over carved wood body) by an unknown maker.  

This page has paths:

Contents of this path: