Just came across this curious passage in Lillian Ross’s 1950 profile of Hemingway in The New Yorker:
"He assumed the air of a man who was not going to be rushed. Slowly, he counted the pieces of luggage. There were fourteen, half of them, Mrs. Hemingway told me, extra-large Valpaks designed by her husband and bearing his coat of arms, also designed by him—a geometric design."
I say "curious" a) because the suggestion that Hemingway assumed arms somehow seems to ratify the contention that armorial assumption is entirely consistent with the national ethos and b) because I can’t easily find an image of said arms online and am a tiny bit skeptical that Ross had her facts straight. Anybody seen the arms in question?
Wilfred Leblanc;103015 wrote:
Anybody seen the arms in question?
No, never, but I’d love to.
Could it be this?
http://www.rumgallery.com/_Media/papas_pilar_sample_box.jpeg
Also here: http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/5/179879/2559707/Pilar_brownleather.png
Perhaps derived from whatever Hemingway dreamed up, if not a duplicate. One might justifiably describe it as a geometric design. The motto certainly fits.
Images from the links posted by Wilfred.
http://www.rumgallery.com/_Media/papas_pilar_sample_box.jpeg
http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/5/179879/2559707/Pilar_brownleather.png
Instead of the star medallion, there ought to be the Nobel and Pulitzer somewhere
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Nobel_Prize.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Gen_pulitzer.jpg
Guy Power;103023 wrote:
Instead of the star medallion, there ought to be the Nobel and Pulitzer somewhere
The star and the lion gongs would seem to be products of fantasy (but whose?)—the former a strangely totalitarian-looking one, the latter clearly tied to Hemingway’s preferred recreation.
As for the shield, it’s certainly not the worst from the standpoint of this commercial rendering. No indication of tinctures, though. Who knows? Maybe the Finca Vigia has some of the luggage Ross refers to or some note paper that provides a better sense of the original design. Research trip to Cuba, anyone?;)
http://s1121.photobucket.com/user/StarScepter/media/images5.jpg.html
http://s1121.photobucket.com/user/StarScepter/media/images4.jpg.html
http://s1121.photobucket.com/user/StarScepter/media/images6.jpg.html
The lion gong seems to be associated somehow with Pilar’s rum, but they use a rooster seal on the rum bottles. The lion seal seems to be on cigar(?) tins?!
The star gong can mean many things, but for many people in EH’s era it represented communism/socialism.
StarScepter;103026 wrote:
The star gong can mean many things, but for many people in EH’s era it represented communism/socialism.
He certainly experienced political leanings of that sort, so it might originate with his own design and reflect precisely those leanings, but it also has a kind of stylized commercial nonsense look. Anyway, this is fun, albeit idle, speculation on my part. I’ll see if I can’t locate something more substantive.
According to Hemingway’s Guns: The Sporting Arms of Ernest Hemingway, he had it engraved on his guns as well. In the previews I can access, there is no description and no photos.
Well, that’s a second piece of literary evidence to triangulate with the Ross profile and the baubles and trinkets now being licensed by Hemingway’s estate.
I’m trying hard to find an image and coming up short.
Whether an image immediately materializes or not, however, I’d say this is a very interesting development in American heraldry. Not that Hemingway wasn’t a problematic figure, but he was nothing if not implacably—in principle—opposed to phoniness, and I would say that if he, of all people, saw nothing phony about assuming arms, there is absolutely no reason for anyone else to. Hasty generalization? Perhaps, but one can’t help being just a bit astonished. Perhaps, too, it should be conceded that the "coat of arms" in question—if the commerical rendering we’ve looked at is essentially what he used—might equally be described as simply a cipher or a monogram with armorial ornamentation rather than a coat of arms, per se.
I wonder if Hemingway saw these as a coat of arms or simply an elaborate monogram
Certainly, the initials EH might tie the blazon too closely to the original armiger and make it unappealing—not to say useless—to his heirs. On the other hand, Hemingway obviously felt a certain kinship with Spaniards, and Spanish heraldry doesn’t frown on the use of letters or words on the shield, so maybe that’s the inspiration/rationale. Also, Hemingway’s historical importance was established in his own lifetime, and he may have thought that such an obvious announcement of descent from him would bring honor to anyone wishing to make it. (That line of reasoning seems unlikely to me, but so does his assuming arms to begin with.) Then, too, are there not figural and abstract elements of some blazons that might as well be initials, so closely tied are they to specific progenitors? Maybe going straight for initials is just a way of cutting through old world conceits and being more "authentic." And maybe he had in mind the precedent of Hawthorne’s "bearings unknown to English heraldry"—sable, the letter A gules.
I can dream up all kinds of explanations, but who knows if we’re even looking at what the texts we’re citing refer to?
Don’t know what EH had in mind, but his descendants (if any) could just substitute their own initial for the E. Not exactly kosher but then neither is the rest of it!
Michael F. McCartney;103039 wrote:
...but his descendants (if any) ....
Looks like son Patrick is still living.
Oh, and did you forget about Margot and Mariel? (^__^)
—Guy
Plenty of living descendants. One grandson, Sean, is a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Thanks! Would be interesting to know is any/all of them use this design.
