Beaver-Shaped Bowl (c. 1890–1920): Art, History and Details

Beaver-Shaped Bowl (c. 1890–1920) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Bowls were a major Northwest Coast art form, used in many contexts including potlatch feasts that validated the rights and privileges of wealthy noble families. When Euro-American settlement forced a change from traditional to cash economies in the early 1900s, Indigenous carvers turned their skills to creating bowls like this example for the outside market.

Object facts

• Title: Beaver-Shaped Bowl
• Date: c. 1890–1920
• Culture: Native North America, Northwest Coast, Alaska, Tlingit?
• Type: Wood
• Technique: wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.3 x 27 x 18.7 cm (4 7/16 x 10 5/8 x 7 3/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Native North America
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2009.434

Collection credit

Gift of Barry Bradley

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.