Special Value Offer: Hopi Second Mesa Very Large Coiled Pictorial Storage Basket [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: The consignor of this beautiful Hopi 2nd Mesa basket has asked us to reduce the price from $7500 to $3900 — that's a 48% price reduction.

Baskets made by the women from Second Mesa villages are unique in the Southwest both for designs and construction techniques.  The coils are made from a bundle of galleta grass or rabbitbrush over which stitches of thin strips of yucca form the weft or outer layer.  The Hopi are unique in this technique as no other pueblo made baskets in this manner.  It is believed that it is a carryover from their prehistoric Hohokam ancestors.

The primary colors on Hopi coiled baskets are the natural shades of yucca leaves, from which the sewing splints are made.  The leaves in their natural state are green, when frozen are white and when bleached in the sun are golden yellow.  The yucca can be boiled with sunflower seeds, piñon pitch and ocher to obtain a black color.  Navajo tea provides for yellow-orange. 

Large baskets with Katsina faces or full-body katsinas were made in the 1880 to 1900 period and have been revived in interest by today's collectors.  This basket is larger than most being made today and it is spectacularly decorated with a pair of Crow Mother Katsinas and a pair of Eagle Katsinas.

According to Andrew Hunter Whiteford, "Contemporary coiled baskets from Second Mesa equal or surpass any made in earlier times.  Materials are carefully prepared, the baskets are tightly coiled and stitched, and large quantities of them are made as gifts, as ritual objects, and for sale to outsiders."

This basket, made by Hopi artist, Elizabeth Nuvayumay, is spectacular in size, shape, construction and design.  The four images of full-body katsinas were brilliantly executed over the wonderful variegated background yellow yucca color.  It is an extraordinary work of art.

Condition: original condition

Provenance: from an Arizona resident

Recommended Reading; Southwest Indian Baskets: Their History and Their Makers by Andrew Hunter Whiteford