Lloyd McCaffery

Lloyd McCaffery is one of the most amazing miniaturists of this or any age. Just as the names Fabergé and Tiffany have come to represent superior levels of design and quality, we believe that when this generation of miniature carvers is examined, Lloyd McCaffery’s name will be found atop the list.

Over the past five decades he has set new standards in the field, from pioneering unique methods of miniature construction to perfecting the art of intricate detailed carving. He has devoted his life to the creation of the most detailed and exquisite work at small scales that it is possible for the mind to imagine. McCaffery is trained as an artist and sculptor, and his works in the ship model field have long been collected by serious connoisseurs of this genre. More recently, he expanded his range of subjects to include miniature dinosaur skeletons, wildlife, carousel horses, stagecoaches, and original figure sculptures.

The woods he uses are smooth, hard, fine-grained fruit woods. The tools include air turbine dental engines, jewelers' tweezers, and a number of miniature versions of planes, chisels, and knives he has fashioned to his own exacting specifications to achieve the results he seeks.

His work has been featured in many magazines, among them Connoisseur, Wooden Boat, Miniature Collector, Yankee, Wildlife Art News, Sea History, Wildfowl Carving & Collecting, The Yacht, Fine Woodworking, and Showboats International. He has written many articles for the scholarly publications Model Shipwright and the Nautical Research Journal. His definitive book on ship modeling techniques, Ships in Miniature, was published in 1988, and reprinted in 2002 by Conway Maritime Press of London. His miniature model of the HMS Prince was featured in The New York Times Magazine in November 1990. Just 3 ½" long, it was built up plank-on-frame and incorporated 100 turned cannons with the muzzles bored out. This model sold in 1990 for $100,000, setting a world record for a contemporary ship model at the time. He recently expanded his carving repertoire to include a collection of 52 miniature figureheads from ships of the United States Navy (1749-1892) and a collection of 60 miniature figureheads from Merchant and Clipperships (1779-1878).

His work has been exhibited and can be found in the collections of many museums worldwide, among them, the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; U.S.S. Constitution Museum, Boston, Massachusetts; The Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut; Pan-American Japanese-American Amity Hall, Kushimoto, Japan; and the Columbia Maritime Museum, Astoria, Oregon, among others.