This pair of Canvasback was mounted on a set of lamps. "R. Madison Mitchell once said he just wanted to be a good funeral director and carve wood when things got slow. But it was the ducks and geese he fashioned in his spare time -- some of which fetched $10,000 -- that made him famous. Mr. Mitchell's decoys are showcased in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, but most of his work is immortalized in the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum. In the small house, tucked behind the family's funeral home business, were more ducks -- photos of them covering paneled walls, decoys lining shelves, stained-glass ducks, even a wind sock decorated with ducks. The man who would become the undisputed dean of decoy-carvers began carving as a hobby in 1924 when business was slow at the funeral home." --Excerpt taken from a January 15, 1993 Baltimore Sun article.