Another Figurehead

[poliphilo]

There's a good story attached to this one

The label says-

"This is part of a figurehead that once decorated a Spanish prison hulk, a ship that housed political prisoners, near the island of Fernando Po, West Africa. The head was stolen in 1869 by four junior naval officers from HMS Sirius (a British ship moored nearby), who rowed out in a gale, climbed the ship's cable and sawed it off."