The Turned-Head Bishop's Head Black Duck Drake by The Ward Brothers

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The Winter Sale 2026, Day 2

By Copley Fine Art Auctions

Feb 21, 2026

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• Lot Description
  The Turned-Head Bishop's Head Black Duck Drake
  The Ward Brothers
  Lemuel T. (1896-1984) and Stephen (1895-1976)
  Crisfield, MD, c. 1930
  17 in. long
  
  The Bishops Head Fish and Gun Club was a luxury two-story lodge founded by Col. Albanus Phillips and W. Grason Winterbottom around 1923. It was a grand club which included land on a peninsula thirty miles south of Cambridge, MD, it also included Bloodsworth Island across Hooper Strait. The Bishops Head boat dock was shared with members of the Cambridge Yacht Club, which Phillips founded as well. This camp provided Phillips and Winterbottom a place of respite from their booming food-canning business. Phillips was widely known throughout the Eastern Shore and U.S. Presidents Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt were known to have been guests at his lodge. During its heyday, Bishops Head was considered one of the Eastern Shore's great hunting clubs.
  
  The reputation of Lem and Steve Ward "spread throughout the Chesapeake region, and they produced decoys for gunners in the Upper Bay as well," reports Maryland decoy historian and author of a book on the club C. John Sullivan. He continues, "A few of the gunning clubs ordered Ward decoys, and in some cases a particular Ward style became associated with a specific club." The Bishops Head style is one such example. Known for their pronounced crowns, paddle tails, detailed body paint, high heads, and full cheeks, this black duck showcases all of the best traits associated with the club. While this distinctive design is most commonly found in geese, it is also seen in a small number of mallards, wigeon, and black ducks.
  
  Of the numerous patterns designed by the Ward brothers over a fifty-plus-year career as decoy makers, the Humpback, Pinch-Breast, Beavertail, and Bishops Head models have been the most highly sought after by the nation's top decoy and folk art collectors. Approximately a half-dozen premier Bishops Head black duck examples are known to have surfaced, with perhaps none finer than this drake. Three of the other black ducks have gone to important collections in Maryland, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Indeed, a single closely related hen with a slightly turned head set the record for a Ward black duck at auction, selling for over $97,000 in 2010. This male, with a thinner neck and head turned forty-five degrees, displays a nearly identical paint pattern. Additionally, this drake has an extended long, thin paddle tail, separating it from most other Bishops Head birds.
  
  Lem's ability to expertly apply feather paint is on full display across both genders from head to tail. While early decoy makers did not typically differentiate between the hens and drakes of this wary species, Lem communicates each sex through the color of their bills, a blended yellow for this drake and a green shade for the hens.
  
  This decoy is considered one of the finest black ducks from the Eastern Shore. Along with works by Elmer Crowell and "Shang" Wheeler, it stands out as one of the finest black duck carvings known by any maker.
  Original paint with light wear and visible neck seam.
  
  Provenance: Private Collection, acquired from the North Shore of Massachusetts
  Private Collection, Florida
  
  Literature: C. John Sullivan, "Bishops Head Fish and Gun Club," Bel Air, MD, 2018, club history, gunning logs, and related decoys discussed and illustrated. C. John Sullivan, "Waterfowling on the Chesapeake, 1819-1936," Baltimore, MD, 2003. R. H. Richardson, "Chesapeake Bay Decoys," Cambridge, MD, 1991, p. 167, Strausburg Collection rigmate illustrated. Ronald J. Gard and Brian J. McGrath, "The Ward Brothers' Decoys: A Collector's Guide," Plano, TX, 1989, pp. 75-79, Purnell Collection example illustrated. Joe Engers. "Year In Review 2010," Decoy Magazine, front cover and p. 9, closely related example illustrated. Copley Fine Art Auctions, "The Winter Sale 2019," Charleston, SC, February 2019, front cover and lot 169, Bishops Head wigeon pair illustrated. Loy S. Harrell Jr., "Decoys: North America's One Hundred Greatest," Iola, WI, 2000, pp. 160-161, Bishops Head wigeon drake illustrated.

  Condition

  Please refer to the description; if you have additional questions, email colin@copleyart.com.
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