Woven Pre 1940 Native American mat. | ||
| Folk Art677 of 2611 |  |  |
ho2cultcha loves this.
Sewing53 likes this.
Anik loves this.
Tlynnie1942 loves this.
Mrstyndall loves this.
vetraio50 loves this.aura loves this.
blunderbuss2 loves this.Caperkid loves this.
kwqd loves this.
fortapache loves this.
Vynil33rpm loves this.Create a Show & TellReport as inappropriate
Posted 6 years ago
Sewing53
(35 items)
I was told by an expert that this is a pre 1940 woven Makkah mat. They live on the North West Point of Washington State. It also seems that the fish are really whales. I cannot tell what the other symbols are. There are at least 4 colors. I would love to find a closer age estimate. I know it cannot be earlier than 1860and it was made to be sold to tourists.
Create an account or login in order to post a comment.
This really is a nice mat made by a member of the Makah tribe. The colors on the front are lighter than the other side, due to sunlight. It is difficult to put an age to basketry, but I agree with the expert in that it was Pre 1940. A lot of my Native American basketry that I have posted here, I put a "probable" date of "This" to "That". Or I add an "s" to give a 10-year window on when the basket was made, like 1880's .
The patina of the grasses that were used to weave this is darker, and that can take a very long time for a natural progression of drying out and changing colors. There is also fading of the Green band around the mat in places and that also takes a long time to happen.
Without provenance of who owned this basket before anyone else, no one can give you a precise age for this mat. You have to go by what this basket looks like, the materials used to make it. The designs on it, and by the way I am not sure about the "whales" description, the eyes are kind of big to me but I will not argue with the expert you took this mat to. It could be the artist does that as a kind of signature on their work "And as for the other smaller designs, I think they might be crabs. When I look at them, I see the long, thin legs.
Again, this is a really nice mat, were you given it or did you find it somewhere? I love "finding" really nice things somewhere that you get a great price on. :)
Haha, the expert seems to agree with you. I added the whale part and I stand corrected. I really appreciate your information and the time you took.
I found it at the Alameda Antique Faire. The seller said she thought it South American but hadn’t checked it out. I guessed not. It was inexpensive, so I walked over to a dealer who specialized in this type of item, who identified it. You filled in the blanks.