Posted 8 years ago
Tlynnie1942
(134 items)
Just got this today, it is a Black Ash basket that was made somewhere between 1890 and 1920. It is old but still in great shape, it measures 8x8 and is 3 1/2 inches in height. This basket has dyed splints in what would have been black and red, but time has faded those colors, now it looks like dyed walnut and light pink. The bottom is really nice too, it shows the natural wood that has polychromed into a golden shiny surface. It is really pretty, the whole basket has polychromed but the bottom shows it more that the rest of the basket.
The basket is rimmed with two pieces of Bentwood that runs the whole rim, and another really thin piece of Bentwood was used to lash around the other two pieces in order to keep them together. In one of the pictures you can see the knife marks where the maker of this basket whittled the ends of the Bentwood to make them come together without them being too thick in that spot. You can also see that there is no coloring at all on the inside of this basket, that is because back then the artist would only add the color to the outside of baskets. Even though they used things in nature for dyes ( like boiling walnuts for brown, or berries for red) they still used them sparingly and never on the inside of a basket.
I was looking at Ebay and checking some searches I have there last week. I check for baskets that have been listed, where you can see that the seller has no idea what they have. Sometimes, like this time I just bought the basket. Other times I tell them what they have so they can research it themselves. If the seller is seasoned and has a ton of sales then they should know what they are selling and I will just buy the basket and that is it. There is no damage at all to this basket and I only paid less than 7 dollars for it, I got a great deal for it :)
I know this basket came from the Northeastern part of the United States, and Ho2cultcha helped me out with who made this beautiful basket, so thank you for that :) Right now I am looking for a place in my living room for it, it is too big for my curio cabinets as they only hold small and miniature baskets. At this moment, I have it on top of my desk so I can see it while I check out other people's baskets and get my news of the day from the internet.
Thanks for looking, enjoy the pics :)
Thank you to Aura, fortapache, niceface and vetraio50 for the "Loves" for my basket. I do appreciate it :)
it looks like baskets that my Micmac relatives made in Maine and Nova Scotia.
Really? See Ho2cultcha I waver just a bit off my usual and I get it wrong right out of the gate. I knew it was not Penobscot or Passamaquoddy. I knew it was not Abenaki or Maliseet. I will go with MicMac if you say so, my family is Choctaw on my fathers side and Cherokee on my mothers side. And I do not collect baskets from either tribe LOL I love the Northeast Coast, Maine and up into Canada through New York. That and Alaskan, Tlingit Tsimshian and Makah, Nu Chan Nulth and Haida. But sometimes a basket will catch my eye and I get it without knowing where it came from. Thanks for helping me out :)