Basket and… a Pot

Basket called NW Coast. Pot just called NA. Both look like they could be. I’m real bad with baskets. Pot is being sold along with a known NA pottery repro. The repro looks new though and the pot doesn’t. Pot has repaired handle. Neither are mine, these are the only photo, just curious.

 

I didn’t even see that the pot was footed on first look. I don’t believe NA’s commonly made footed pots? I don’t think I’ve seen many or any at least. Maybe more likely Central American or Mexican?

 

Catawba pottery maybe. (Doesn't have to be old to be NA) @Taupou

 

Salish basket
old, likely used..
too much damage for my taste....

if u like history...and the look.....keep it under $50....
these do sell though......even with damage.....but at a discounted price..

 

I ended up gambling on it. Went higher than I was hoping so someone else knew it was good. This place in the short time I’ve been buying from them has a history of misidentifying items as NA. I wasn’t sure if the dark material was consistent with PNWC baskets but I had a decent feeling about it. I think I paid $32 plus fees. I like that it’s small. I have a bunch of baskets but they are all bigger and I don’t have a place to display them. I’ll probably start selling some of those and keep this for a while. When it comes to baskets condition doesn’t really bother me for some reason. What points to it being Salish specifically? Thanks!

I didn’t get the silver piece with the fox hallmark btw. I bid high and was still the runner up.

 

Oh yeh, it looks like you’re on the money. So hard to say 100% (for me) but it certainly looks close, and they seem to do a lot of footed stuff. The provenanced repro in the lot was a SE piece. So maybe the collector picked up a couple things in this region. I went to put a small bid in on the lot but it ended before I got it in.

 

What points to it being Salish specifically?

Well for starters ...me.....it's my business to know these things..!

Factually ,

the bundle coiling technique ,
used to make the basket firm and strong.

the design,
that rectangle upwardly flared manufacture , with a round coiled base.

the cherry bark imbrication..
Imbrication is a regular overlapping arrangement technique that is used exclusively by Native people of the Plateau and Northwest Coast areas.



the tightly woven cedar root ,
making the basket ideal for gathering and holding wet items....


from the Burke Museum....( just to have my back...)

Salish Weaving Basketry
Baskets were used for storage or for gathering berries, roots, clams and other foods. Coiled baskets were tight enough to be used for boiling soups and stews. There are three basic basketry techniques used by Coast Salish weavers: coiling, twining and plaiting.

For coiled baskets, cedar roots are peeled and split. The rough inner roots are bundled to make the foundation of the coil, and the smooth outer root is used as the sewing element. Coiling involves the use of an awl, a pointed bone tool, to push a hole through the coil below the bundle, the sewing element is pushed through this opening and tightened to attach the bundle to the coil below. Decorative elements made of cherry bark, dyed cedar bark, bear grass, or horsetail rhizomes, are folded and sewn down on the outside of the basket to form geometric patterns, in a technique called imbrication.

 

Thanks! You know your business like nobodies business it seems. I’m hoping to someday to begin to begin to be able ID baskets. I think I’m more observant than a good percentage of people but I feel like baskets you have to be so mega observant. To me its the hardest thing to even get a small base level of knowledge on. Everything I even try to learn I forget. I guess maybe going to a basket museum or gallery or something where I might be able to get some hands on pointers might help. I guess most museums you’re not getting hands on but eyes on with expert help maybe. I really enjoy them though. A more tactile hands on handmade ancient thing hardly exists.

 

Thank you !
It takes an eye , a passion, a wonder, and time !

Books help , too .









here's 3 of the best !!!!

 

Thanks for the recommendations. I know you’re right and that outside of getting real in person education this would be my best bet. I buy research books. I buy so much stuff to resell that I spend all my time researching item by item online and never reading my books. I think wouldn’t it be great to open these books and really study them and then it doesn’t happen. I’ll have to specifically schedule time for studying in general which will end up cutting down the need for as many specific narrow sighted searches in the long run.

 

I picked it up today. Despite a fragile old rim it’s impressive how stout and rigid the lower portion of this basket is. It’s stinger construction than many I’ve held.

 

the one virtue of a broken basket....you can really see how it was made !

u want hands on.......... u got it !!!