Oval Shaped Serving Basket with Handles [SOLD]

Jicarilla Apache basketry covers a long span of time, but very little is known of their work before they were settled on a reservation in 1887 in northern New Mexico. All Jicarilla baskets are of coil weave, usually of sumac, but sometimes of willow.  The Jicarilla Apache women generally made large deep basket bowls for winnowing or storage.  They were designed with elements of commercial dyes, so fading is quite normal on a basket of some age.

The Jicarilla Apache Nation is located in the mountains and rugged mesas of northern New Mexico.  The landscape offers diverse scenery of Ponderosa pine forests in mountainous terrain and Piñon pine mesas with sage brush flats.  Dulce, New Mexico, is the Jicarilla Apache Nation Headquarters.

This basket is typical of the style made for sale to collectors and visitors to the Jicarilla village.  It is oval shape and the outer two rows at the top of the basket were extended to form handles at the two ends.  The edge of the rim was finished in a herringbone weave.

Condition:  Very good condition

Provenance: from the collection of Katherine H. Rust

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