Baskets Find A New Home in Anchorage

On April 19, 2022, the New York Times ran an article about the closing of the Wells Fargo Museum in Anchorage, AK.  Over 1,700 items from that museum have transferred to the Alaskan Native Heritage Center, "a museum that focuses on Indigenous culture and is operated by Alaska Natives," and is also in Anchorage, according to Zachary Small's article. Some items were transferred to the Anchorage Museum as well. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/arts/design/alaska-heritage-center-gift.html).

I was fortunate to be able to visit the Wells Fargo Museum in 2019, and here are a few my photos of the exhibits there.

Unangan Aleut twined baskets, late 19th - early 20th centuries.

Cukiq, grass socks worn with mukluks.

More Unangan Aleut fancy baskets and a painted wooden hat.

A wooly mammoth's tusk is highlighted in the now-defunct Wells Fargo Museum's gallery.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center is a vibrant place where artists from throughout Alaska demonstrate their arts, from basketry to dance. It is well worth a trip if you are ever in Alaska. It will be interesting to see what new exhibits might feature items from the Wells Fargo Museum. (BBP photo 2012)

Seen at the Anchorage Museum, 2019:

Left, sewn and beaded detail on a fur dance parka.  

Below: a basketry dance fan in the hand of a dancer.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Anchorage Museum both have shops where authentic arts such as baskets can be purchased.

ka.

Viking Baskets

 A trailer for the new movie The Northman depicts, of all things, a scene with Anya Taylor-Joy in what appears to be a basketry workshop. She is next to an unfinished basket, people behind her are weaving, and a basket which might be a fish trap is seen on the left.  They are open twined, and could be made of unpeeled willow or a number of other plant materials.

The Viking Age lasted from about 789 to 1066. The Vikings were wide-ranging people, but their home was the area now known as Scandinavia: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.   Here's a short tour of some baskets from this area.

The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen has several archaeological baskets on display. When I visited in 2016, I took this rather poor photo of a crushed fish trap basket. It is open twined, and has some reinforcing rods on the exterior. The label text describes it as a "Trap of bound twigs for catching small fish and eels." It is from Lille Knabstrup in western Zealand, and dates to 4500 B.C.  This definitely predates the Viking Age, but is a good example of an early Danish basket.

The Hanseatic Museum in Bergen, Norway, contains items from the period of the Hanseatic League, from the 13th to 15th centuries. Definitely post-Viking. The Norwegian baskets in the photograph below, taken of an exhibit there in 2016, may not be that old.

 

The Ringkøbing-Skjern Museum in Denmark's Jutland region has this work basket in its collection. It is open coiled with a foundation of a bundle of straw and is woven with an unidentified woody material. It dates from the 20th century.

The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, has some more contemporary baskets on display.

 

At this museum, modern artisans create Viking craft, from baskets to longboats. The photo to the left is an exhibit which shows a model chicken in a basketry cage nestled in a longboat.

The Tycho Brahe Museet in Ven, Sweden, uses contemporary Swedish baskets in their hands-on program. These handled carrying baskets on the lawn hold gaming pieces.

This gathering of Scandinavian baskets dates from 6500 years ago to the present. From this limited selection, it seems that the basketry props seen in The Northman trailer may indeed reflect the type and manufacture of baskets used by the Vikings.

Adoration of the Magi

The National Gallery, on the National Mall in Washington D.C., is filled with painted treasures. On a visit in December 2021, I found myself in the Italian Renaissance section in the West Building. I was drawn to a large circular painting, a tondo format, 36.5 inches in diameter.

In celebration of Christmas, I am sharing this, the "Adoration of the Magi." The painting is thought to have been made between 1440 and 1460, and perhaps be by the hand of two artists, Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. For more information about it, see the National Gallery's website. 

Most pertinent to this blog, of course, is the manger. Not a manger cradling the Christ child, but the manger full of hay, which a donkey is enjoying. It is woven in a wicker weave, with multiple warps.

It is a straight and dark material, perhaps willow, which is used in contemporary Italian baskets. In this detail, the angular cuts of the warp ends can be seen.

My limited internet research into Italian Renaissance basketry has thus far been unsuccessful. However, I came across the secular festival of Thests in Polcenigo, Italy. The website features contemporary Italian baskets in multicolored willow, including a dark brown. Add this basketry festival to my list of places to visit.

https://www.prolocopolcenigo.com/sagra-dei-thest//

A Bit About Bannock Baskets

 A Bit About Bannock Baskets.*

*Not to be confused with Scottish baskets used in the preparation of bannock bread. This is a discussion of baskets from the Bannock of the Plateau region of North America. For more information on the people, see their website, Shoshone-Bannock Tribe.

A September 2021 visit for identification of Native American basketry at Shelburne Museum in Vermont led to my attribution of probably Bannock, possibly Shoshone, for a coiled willow basket.  The basket in question, item number 1947-17.5, reminded me of Bannock baskets in the Southwest Museum collection at the Autry Museum of the American West, last seen by me in person in 2009, and not currently present on their online collection database. The Bannock County Historical Museum and the Idaho Museum of Natural History do not have collections online, although they both have ethnographic collections, and the Idaho Museum reports having an excellent collection of Shoshonean basketry materials. The American Museum of Natural History has a Bannock basket collected by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, donated in 1900, but its features are not all the same as the one in Vermont.  

Bannock or Shoshone Basket, date unknown. Plant materials,
 possibly willow, 6 ¾ x 6 ¾ x 6 ¾ in. Gift of Electra Havemeyer Webb.
 1947-17.5. Photo: Nancie Ravenel, Shelburne Museum.

Rim detail, Shelburne Museum
1947-17.5. Photo: BBP

Shelburne Museum's basket is round with an oval start, it has clipped weft ends with a few tucked weft ends, occasional split stitches, and a whipstitched rim. It is probably coiled of willow. Plus, it has four cloth imbricated stitches. Most indicative of placing the basket in the Bannock/Shoshone area is its three rod stacked foundation. According to Whiteford (North American Indian Arts, 2001), "Idaho Shoshoni basketry includes three-rod stacked coiling with willow." 

I needed some baskets for comparison. How about checking America's attic, the Smithsonian Institution, for Bannock baskets? I hit pay dirt! A quick online search of the National Museum of the American Indian collection brought up 175 "Possibly Bannock (attributed)" baskets, all collected by William (Willem) Wildschut, an anthropologist, during fieldwork sponsored by the Museum of the American Indian (MAI) in 1924.  Modifying the search, "Bannock basket coiled" resulted in a list of 104 items!  "Fort Hall Reservation; Bannock County, Bingham County, Caribou County, Power County; Idaho; USA" is the listed place of collection for the baskets, with some specifically noted as being from the Cook Drug Store and Indian Curio Shop in Pocatello, Idaho.

Here's the link to that search:

https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/search?edan_q=bannock%20basket%20coiled

Interestingly, most of the baskets with colored designs in this collection list "paint" as a material. One example of this is basket with cover 13/1394. This round basket has a three rod stacked foundation that is clearly visible in the photo, occasional split stitches, and an oval start that can be seen on the lid. Looking at the photograph and not holding the basket in front of me, I find it hard to differentiate potential paint from a dyed element. In my experience, baskets with painted areas usually have paint spread on neighboring stitches, and no paint on the weft portion stitched into the coil. On 13/1394, extra paint on other stitches, or within the coil, can't be seen. Again, I'm looking at the online photo and not at the basket directly.  And then, there is basket jar 13/1288, which does have paint, blotchy paint, in red and green. This also had three rods stacked, a few split stitches, and possibly a tucked under stitch seen on the left edge of the photo. 

Detail,Cloth stitch detail,
Shelburne Museum
1947-17.5 Photo: BBP.

There was no paint detected on the Shelburne's basket. However, there is cloth woven into it, and cloth was sometimes used in Bannock and Shoshone baskets (Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh, Indian Baskets, 1986 edition). In my next search of the Smithsonian online collections, "Bannock basket cloth" came up with ten items. In nine of these, the cloth was either a carrying strap or wrappings on cradle baskets.  The tenth is basket tray 13/1363, a shallow bowl with inconsistent stitches, a few tucked weft ends, and black wool cloth used on the rim. This is unlike our basket, in which there are four cloth imbricated stitches in a row on the exterior.

Next, a search on "Shoshone basket coiled," which brought up 40 items, including Northern Paiute, Western Shoshone from Nevada, and some attributed to Koso (Panamint/Shoshone) from Death Valley, CA.  About a dozen of the Shoshone baskets look like the Bannock baskets recently seen.

The first basket, 12/2032, looks suspiciously like those in the Bannock search. This bowl with handles was made by Mrs. Pawagee-Tattagit, Eastern Shoshone, and collected on the "Wind River Reservation, Fremont County, Hot Springs County; Wyoming; USA."  This was also collected by Wildschut, on a 1923 MAI expedition.  It is coiled of willow with a three rod stacked foundation, a few split stitches, and a few tucked weft stitches.

Other notable baskets in this search are four gambling trays, three collected by Wildschut in 1923 from the Wind River Reservation: 12/2103, owned by Mrs. Mujawo, Eastern Shoshone, with a painted central design and a rim of cross-stitched willow wefts over a band of red wool cloth, and a three rod stacked foundation; 12/2108 owned by Mrs. Hibitsitsi, Shoshone, with a red wool cloth rim with overcast willow stitches, and a three rod stacked foundation; 12/2109 made by Susie Peahrora (Mrs. Pedro Peahrora), Eastern Shoshone, with black wool at the rim, stacked rod foundation indeterminate.  The fourth gambling basket tray 1/112 was purchased by George Heye in 1906 from Frank Covert, the collection history is unknown and it is from the "Great Basin region, USA (inferred)."  It has remnants of red wool cloth at the rim, with overcast willow stitches. It does not appear to have a three rod stacked foundation, although it's hard to tell precisely from the photo.  https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/objects/NMAI_10959?destination=edan_searchtab%3Fedan_q%3D1/112

With the presence of the cloth, the occasional split stitches, a few tucked weft stitches, an oval start, and the most characteristic three rod stacked foundation, it seems like this basket from Shelburne Museum is, indeed, probably Bannock or Shoshone.  It's been fun investigating.

Oval start detail, view of base.
Photo: Nancie Ravenel, Shelburne Museum.

Thank you to Shelburne Museum staff Nancie Ravenel, Barbara Rathburn, and Leslie Wright. This visit was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Vietnamese Bamboo Structures and Baskets

 In line with the late Prince Philip being photographed with baskets, I snapped a shot of Colin Powell off of the television that was shown on CNN Breaking News when he passed away, October 18, 2021.

Powell is leaning against a structure in Vietnam in the mid-1960s. It looks to be constructed of bamboo and made in a wicker weave. It is similar in construction to a mat seen in a photograph below.

Echoing this construction is "Floating Nest," a new building with a bamboo basketry-type exterior screen by Atelier NgNg, a research and design firm with offices in Los Angeles and Saigon.  

Read about it here: https://worldarchitecture.org/article-links/egfnz/this-vietnamese-narrow-house-by-atelier-ngng-is-clad-by-woven-bamboo-screen-made-of-vertical-sticks.html

Detail, Floating Nest

Below, an undated photo from Viet Nam News shows a bamboo house with construction more like Atelier NgNg's Floating Nest than Powell's building.

https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/155/4/68/1538909867394.html

Goggling "Vietnamese bamboo structures" led to all types of beautiful and creative contemporary structures, wherein bamboo is lauded as the building material of the future.  To find some older photos, I dove into archives and found Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, whose copyright statement says: 

"The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University....If using these resources for writing purposes, they should be cited appropriately to include The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University and the individual collection from which they were used." https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/resources/digital.php

Although I have not found more on Vietnamese bamboo construction with limited searching today, I found hundreds of photos with bamboo in the archives, and will share a few with baskets here. These are all cropped. Interested readers are encouraged to visit the online archives to see more. Thank you to the Archives, including soldiers and others who donated their photographs.

Courtesy of The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University:

Qui Nhon Vietnam, 1955
Rufus Philips Collection,
VA066498

Basket hanging from a bamboo ceiling,
 W.B. Bartow Collection,
VA009374

Basketry mat, 1970, Douglas Pike
Collection, VA002376

Bamboo building, no date, Earl R. Rhine
Collection, VA061131

Roadside Baskets, Hugh Manes Collection,
 VA016566

Prince Philip

On the passing of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (10 June 1921 - 9 April 2021), the media has responded with many photos of him. These two, with baskets, were featured in The Guardian.

  

Above: Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth, and Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2014. (Photo - Arthur Edwards.)  

Below: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at a polo match in 2018 sitting in wicker chairs. (Photo - Antony Jones.)

 

tttt

The Easter Bunny Comes to My House

 I have three great Easter baskets to share.

First, the oldest. A two-piece rabbit basket which was purchased in China in the 1980s by my grandmother-in-law. It is plaited of bamboo, with slivers of bamboo for ears, and glass eyes.

I purchased the second basket in Germany in 1991. 

It is not German made, I would suspect an Asian origin for it. This bright yellow basket is woven of dyed grass in a twill weave. The purple bunny and flowers are embroidered onto the basket with long stitches of a shiny dyed plant material (it is not raffia). The twilled stitching inset in the ear is a nice touch.

The third bunny is rattan wickerwork. I like the soft pastel colors, the clever way the body is shaped, and the sway of the ears, as if they are twitching. It's ornamented with black plastic eyes and a pink ribbon. It was purchased at Cost Plus in the late 1980s, and I suspect it is of Asian origin as well.

It's always a happy Easter with these bunny baskets. It's even happier when they get filled with chocolate goodies!