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James Edward Little 129 “concertina player” in conjunction with this case.27 Later that year, he was sentenced to three months in prison for stealing “a brass push bell, a metal sugar bowl, a china fl ower vase, a thermometer, and three small ashtrays” valued at six shillings from an auction room in Bath. He carried sand in his pockets, which he threw in the eyes of those who tried to apprehend him, though he then apologized and said he was “down and out.” He had been sleeping in Sham Castle Woods near Bath and was near starvation, although the newspaper account of this incident also mentions that he had a basement workshop from which more stolen property was recovered, doubling his incarceration to six months.28 The Devizes bronzes eventually resurfaced in the Ipswich Museum, having been purchased from the collector Dr. Clouston of Tonbridge Kent, who had bought them from an elderly dealer in antiques in Lakenham, Norfolk, who in turn had gotten them from Little. Little was recharged in 1939 and given a twelve-month sentence.29 His circumstances had not improved by 1947 when Webster met him in Torquay, living in squalor. The story ends on 19 July 1953, when James Edward Little died of toxemia at the age of seventy seven. Because of his shady dealings and his avoidance of contact with his clients except at one remove, he remains an elusive character in the history of tribal art, but one whose shadow remains in many collections. He was resourceful, albeit in a misguided manner, and objects attributed to him—which, as we have seen, may be too many—have become collectable in their own right. With special thanks to Tim Teuten for his help with research and sourcing images, and also to Jonathan Fogel for his encouragement and assistance. NOTES: 1. J. Edge-Partington, “Maori Forgeries,” Man, 1910, nos. 31 & 32. Professor Andree of Munich wrote of his visit to Oberstein and Idar in 1907 that Jakob Wild was the principal fi rm and made exact copies. “I could not tell the difference.” 2. For instance, the Devlin brothers of Dunedin who made on commission for Maori customers. Others who made curios including jade tiki were St. Clair and Liardet, Wellington; Yuill, Christchurch; Smyth, Dunedin; Spencer and Larsen, Auckland and Dannefaerd, Rotorua. 3. Copy of the Chicago document written in Fuller’s hand, held in the archive of Fuller’s papers at the West Sussex Records Offi ce in Chichester, UK. This letter is reproduced in part along with a discussion of Little’s activity in Christopher C. Legge and Edward G. Nash. “James Edward Little, Dealer in Savage Weapons, Curios, Skins, Horns, Ivory, &c.: An Object Lesson,” Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 40, no. 4, April 1969, pp. 30–32. This theme is somewhat expanded in Christopher C. Legge and Patrick O’Reilly “Les faux océaniens de James Edward Little dans la collection Fuller.” Journal de la Société des océanistes, no. 27, Tome 26, 1970, pp. 107–119. 4. General Register Offi ce, Somerset House, London. James Edward, son of James Little Gardner and Mary Ann Little, formerly Thomas, was born December 20th, 1876, at The Lodge, Rockend, Torquay in the County of Devon. 5. Mrs. Fuller wrote to Christopher C. Legge on 15 March 1966 that Captain Fuller never met Little and he seemed to avoid meeting his customers. 6. Discussions between A. W. Fuller and Roland Force, Sonnabands, Field Museum, Chicago. 7. Letterbooks of W. O. Oldman, Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand. 8. Beasley’s ledgers, Anthropology Library and Research Centre, British Museum, London. 9. “Unfaithful Husband’s Life at Taunton: A Sad Case,” The Courrier, July 3, 1907, p. 3. 10. W. O. Oldman, “Polynesian Forgeries,” Man, 1910, no. 103, p. 188 11. Puke Ariki has identifi ed at least fi fteen “Maori” objects in the W. H. Skinner Collection that it attributes to Little’s hand. 12. Noted in Robin J. Watt, “The Fake Maori Artefacts of James Edward Little and James Frank Robieson,” doctoral thesis, 1990 (2 vols.). 13. James Frank Robieson (1880-1966) was born in New Zealand and claimed to have learned to carve in the Bay of Plenty Maori style while in Rotorua when posted there in a government position. He raided burial caves, traded wooden carvings to museums and collectors in New Zealand, later carving in sandstone and bowenite (Watt, op. cit., p. 94). He also worked in jade (Watt, op. cit., p. 90). He lived in England between 1919 and 1939. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford holds a great many pieces that are documented as having come from Robieson. In April 1930 Robieson donated a group of four “Maori” tools to the Pitt Rivers Museum, “2 Sandstone cutters and 2 ditto polishers, used by MAORIS for working nephrite (pounamu), from KAI KAI BEACH, OTAGO, S. ISLAND, NEW ZEALAND” and also six fl aked stone tools from the same location. On 8 April 1930, the museum also purchased a large group of artifacts from Robieson for £19.10.0. These included a block of nephrite (kawa kawa variety) showing very deep cutting with sandstone cutters. An additional entry in the museum’s documentation states: “Cut with circular saw.” The group also included adze blades, numerous bone barbs, and fi shhook barbs. Robieson had a sale at Stevens on 8 October 1930 of seventy-six items, from which the Pitt Rivers purchased a single lot, number 738, comprised of twenty-three stone adzes and portions of broken adzes, stone fl akes, etc., for which it paid £1. Barrow attributes a bone fl ute in the same institution, formerly in the Wellcome Collection, to Robieson’s hand. 14. Terence Barrow, “The Faking of Maori Art,” in H. D. Skinner, Comparatively Speaking. Studies in Pacifi c Material Culture 1921–1972. Dunedin, 1974, p. 167. 15. Puke Ariki inv. #A77.195. 16. Barrow, op. cit. 17. Watt (op. cit.) disagrees with Peter Gathercole about the “trumpet style,” op cit., p. 132. 18. Watt, op. cit., pl. 23. 19. Adam Dudding, “National Treasures Protected by Arcane Law,” The Dominion Post, http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ culture/7037006/National-treasures-protected-by-arcane-law (accessed 4/13/15). 20. The Field Museum has three bailers from the Fuller Collection. It is not known which of them is the Taunton bailer. 21. Letter dated 5 May 1914. Found in the cottage of Mangotsfi eld when Little was arrested in 1915 and read out at his trial. 22. Report of Court proceedings Wiltshire Gazette, 18 May 1939. 23. W. O. Oldman, “Polynesian Forgeries,” Man, 1910, no. 103, p. 188. 24. Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936) was a Wisconsin-born multimillionaire who became head of the fi rm of Burroughs and Wellcome, manufacturing chemists. He founded the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science and promoted archaeological research in the Sudan. He took advice from no one. 25. Wellcome relied on his curators to recommend things to him. The third and fi nal of these, Peter Johnston-Saint, was more interested in fi nding medical-related material on the continent, so he would not have bought much from Little after about 1925. 26. Report of Court proceedings in Bath and Wiltshire Chronicle and Herald, June 1932. 27. Bath and Wilts Chronicle and Herald, 1 October 1934. 28. Bath and Wilts Chronicle and Herald, op. cit. Little described himself as a cabinet maker. He said that he was practically starving and had an offer from his son in Torquay to look after him until he could fi nd work. 29. The whole story is told in “Notes,” Man, vol. 49: 107 (1940–42). FIG. 29: Scarifying implement in the Hawaiian style, attributed to Edward Little. England. Early 20th century. Ex A. W. F. Fuller Collection. Wood, fi ber, shark teeth. H: 32.3 cm. © Field Museum, Chicago, 277613. Note the “distressed” surface similar to the base of the box in fi g. 12. A genuine implement of similar form, also from the Fuller Collection, is in the Field Museum, inv. 272596.


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