A Couple of Caravaggio Fruit Baskets and Carlos

In my last blog "The Madonna of the Basket" posted on 12/25/25, I mentioned that I wasn't able to find much about Italian Renaissance basketry in my quick perusal of the internet. But what I did find were two more Italian Renaissance paintings that feature baskets in both images and titles. Both of these oil on canvas works were produced by artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

Caravaggio, Boy With a Basket of Fruit
Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Wikipedia)

“Boy With a Basket of Fruit” (c1593) is part of the collection at Rome's Galleria Borghese in Rome.    

(photo: Wikipedia)

"The basket looks extraordinarily real and vivid," a L.A. Times review explains. 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-caravaggio-getty-20171220-htmlstory.html

Below: detail of the basket held by the boy.

Caravaggio, The Basket of Fruit
Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivita
 Culturali e del Turismo — Galleria Borghese

Caravaggio created "The Basket of Fruit” a few years later, and reportedly it has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan since then (c1597-1600).  This same website gives a glowing description of the painting, but the description of the basket itself is very short – “realistically painted wicker braiding.”

https://www.visit-milan-italy.com/museums/ambrosiana/caravaggio-basket-of-fruit-ambrosiana-milan-italy.html

 Detail, rim of the basket of fruit.

About these basketry descriptions. Real and vivid, yes. Realistically painted? Sure, but it makes me wonder what the comparison was - where are the actual Italian Renaissance baskets hiding, do any exist in museum collections?  

These "braided" baskets look like wicker to me. The website of Museo dell'Intreccio Mediterraneo - Castello dei Doria (Museum of Mediterranean Weaving - Doria Castle) in Sardinia, Italy, describes plaiting with two, three, and multiple weavers. But no illustrations of these techniques are provided. Caravaggio's boy's basket looks like three weavers, or wefts, were used. The fruit basket looks like four wefts, which were split into pairs to complete the rim. 

https://www.mimcastelsardo.it/en/index.html

As to what they are made out of, I found a couple of websites that discuss modern Italian baskets. Museo dell'Intreccio Mediterraneo provides materials including cane, dried wheat culm, dwarf palm, myrtle, oak, olive, willow, sea and lake hay. Elm, hazel, oak and reeds are listed on other websites.  As with basketry world-over, local baskets are made with locally available materials. My guess here would be that Caravaggio painted willow baskets, based on comparisons to similar willow baskets made in the Pueblos of the American Southwest and northern California.

How are these types of baskets actually woven? Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, created a very informative video of artist Carlos Herrera, a Cochiti Pueblo weaver, creating a plaited willow basket. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__mzqSMitRU

Willow Basket by Carlos Herrera,
Cochiti Pueblo, 2021
lower side view

Although I don't have an Italian Renaissance basket photo to share, I do have a photo of a basket made by Carlos Herrera that I purchased from him at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2021. It is made of willow.  Willow baskets such as these are made by various Pueblo tribes, and by tribes in Northern California. Yet again, a topic for a future blogpost.

Willow Basket by Carlos Herrera,
Cochiti Pueblo, 2021
top view

The Madonna of the Basket

Renaissance painter Antonio Allegri da Correggio is also known as Correggio, which is the name of the Italian town where the artist was born in 1489. Pertinent to this Christmas Day blogpost is his painting The Madonna of the Basket.

The Madonna of the Basket by Antonio Allegri da Correggio
circa 1524, oil on wood
National Gallery of London, inventory number NG23

The painting's entry on the website of the National Gallery of London calls the basket a "work basket with its iron shears and ball of grey wool," seemingly equating Mary to an ordinary person with ordinary tasks. As is her husband Joseph, seen toiling as a carpenter in the background.  https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/correggio-the-madonna-of-the-basket

About the basket itself, I found little other descriptive information on my quick survey of websites. 

Helpfully, Artera tells us "The 'basket' refers to the container on the lower left of the painting."  https://www.artera.ae/artworks/abd8f87a-31b2-4086-90b3-2a58c8777257

The basket certainly is tucked into the corner! It's interesting that this minor player earned the title role.

The Web Gallery of Art is a bit more descriptive, letting us know that "Sitting outdoors under a tree, the Virgin, workbasket at her side, is trying a jacket she has just made on the Christ Child."  https://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/correggi/madonna/basket.html

Nowhere did I find a description of the weave nor potential  materials that may have been used in the basket. It looks like it's braided.

 Without seeing the painting in person, and relying on online photos, I think it's more likely a wicker basket. More on this in my next blogpost...soon.

The painting is in the public domain   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_the_Basket_(Correggio)

Now: Notable Nevada Niceties, Number 2

Louisa Keyser, 1902,
Our Ancestral Hunters,
LK29

 Located a few miles south of Reno in Carson City, the Nevada State Museum has an exhibit that is not to be missed, Under One Sky: Basketry Gallery: Waší:šiw Guwa – the Work of the Washoe People.” 

According to the museum’s website, “This rare exhibition brings together the iconic work of famed weaver Louisa Keyser (known as Datsolalee) and other talented Washoe artists—on display at Nevada State Museum, Carson City for the first time in nearly two decades.” 

https://www.carsonnvmuseum.org/exhibits/under-one-sky/

“Louisa Keyser: A Woven Legacy “ celebrates a talented woman and her amazing basketry. Label text notes that she preferred the name Louisa Keyser, adopted when she married Charlie Keyser in 1888. She was dubbed Datsolaee  in 1899 and is probably familiar to more people by this name. She was interred in 1925 at the Stewart Indian Cemetery in Carson City, with Dat-So-La-Lee inscribed on her marker. The cemetery is located near the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum, another very good museum to visit, which occasionally has baskets for sale in its small shop.                      https://stewartindianschool.com/     But I digress.

Lizzie Toby Peters c1902    

Lizzie Toby Peters c1902

Scees Bryant Possock c1900

Basket Water Bottle,
willow coated with pine resin

At the Nevada State Museum, “Rooted in Washoe Tradition” was conceived and curated with input from Washoe tribal members. From photos of contemporary people to text written in the Washoe language, the hands, hearts, and voices of the people were encouraged and are evident.  It’s fun to see a huge gathering basket twined of willow, a small egg-collecting bag woven of tule, a 10,000 year old sandal.  The Nevada State Museum has a large collection of prehistoric basketry, some of the oldest in North America.

Repaired ancient twined basket

Ancient coiled willow basket

Curated by Dr. Anna Camp, Nevada State Museum’s curator of anthropology and tribal liaison, "Waší∙šiw Guwá: The Work of the Washoe People" is the featured exhibit in the permanent gallery.

A lovely and informative book accompanies the exhibition.  The Art of Native American Washoe Basketry, by Ann M. Wolfe, JoAnn Nevers, Catherine S. Fowler, Darla Garey-Sage and Marvin Cohodas (2025) is available in the Nevada State Museum Store. 

I encourage you to visit this grand institution to enjoy beautiful basketry that spans thousands of years in northwestern Nevada.  Now is a good time to go.

Now: Notable Nevada Niceties, Number 1

Now is a fine time to view baskets in Nevada. Two of these exhibitions will close on November 16, 2025. The other is a permanent display. 

The Nevada Museum of Art in Reno is showing “Of the Earth: Native American Baskets and Pueblo Pottery” that features baskets recently donated by Larry Dalrymple and Steve Moreno. The text included with many of these remarkable baskets, several hundred amassed over decades, includes the names of the artists who created them, as well as photos of some of the artists, which were taken by Mr. Dalrymple. From the late 19th through the late 20th century, the names of basketweavers were often not recorded, so this information is a pleasure to have. The text is accessible through several touch screens in the gallery. An extraordinary collection and a magnificent gift, Mr. Dalrymple and Mr. Moreno are to be commended for their generosity. Larry Dalrymple is the author of numerous articles and three books: Indian Basketmakers of California and the Great Basin, Indian Basketmakers of the Southwest, and Their Heritage, Their Tradition: The Resilience of Native American Basket Artists. I recommend all of these publications as important contributions to the corpus of basketry literature.

Some Southwestern Stunners

According to the Nevada Museum of Art’s website, 

“To commemorate this special occasion, the exhibition also features 15 newly commissioned Native American baskets from weavers in the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada, including Leah Brady (Western Shoshone), Loretta Burden (Northern Paiute), Sue Coleman (Washoe), Norma Darrough (Western Shoshone), Gracie Dick (Northern Paiute), Julia Parker (Coast Miwok | Kashaya Pomo), Lucy Parker (Kashaya Pomo | Yosemite Miwok | Mono Lake Paiute | Coast Miwok), Melanie Smokey (Western Shoshone | Washoe), Sandra Eagle (Northern Paiute), Rebecca Eagle (Northern Paiute), Nila Northsun (Shoshone | Chippewa), and Jacqueline Rickard (Walker Lake Paiute).”  Highlighting these artists proves that the art of basketry remains alive and well in our contemporary world.

https://www.nevadaart.org/art/exhibitions/of-the-earth-native-american-baskets-and-pueblo-pottery/

There’s more to see down the hall from this exhibit. Pass a lovely mural and watch a video on your way. Some of the vibrant paintings showcased in the exhibition “The Art of Judith Lowry” include basket images. Within “The Lowry & Croul Collection of Contemporary Native American Art,” Ms. Lowry’s personal art collection which she donated, is another contingent of baskets.  It’s a treat to see baskets made by Maidu artist Shiwaya Peck and others.

Tap tablet for text

Central California Charmers

Co-curators Melissa Melero-Moose (Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe) and Ann M. Wolfe, the Museum’s Andrea and John C. Deane Family Chief Curator and Associate Director, are to be commended for these three excellent exhibitions.

 Be sure to step outside to the rooftop deck, a celebration of basketry plants in three separate gardens.  Plants include devil’s claw (which I had never seen growing before), willow and redbud. Plus other delights, such as bracken fern and dogwood. Hats off to the landscape architects and staff who envisioned and created this oasis. Majestic views of the Sierras and the city below make a nice respite, and a museum staff member mentioned future plans to incorporate contemporary sculptures into this space.

Rooftop garden with devil's claw at the front right.

If you’re thinking of visiting, do so soon. “The Art of Judith Lowry” and “The Lowry & Croul Collection of Contemporary Native American Art” will both close on November 16, 2025.

“Of the Earth: Native American Baskets and Pueblo Pottery” is a permanent display.