Presentation Bowl (1880–90): Art, History and Details

Presentation Bowl (1880–90) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This basket was made for the Euro-American collectors’ market in the early 1900s but it is modeled on basketry bowls from which the Timbisha (Panamint) Shoshone once served food. When used indigenously, the main view would have been of the interior. The two small, pink crosses, made of flicker (woodpecker) quills, may be a maker’s mark. Made-for-sale baskets testify to Indigenous women’s truly creative, resilient responses to forces that endangered their livelihoods and existence.

Object facts

• Title: Presentation Bowl
• Date: 1880–90
• Culture: Native North America, Great Basin, California, Death Valley, Timbisha (Panamint) Shoshone
• Type: Basketry
• Technique: devil's claw, sumac, yucca root, orange-shafted flicker (woodpecker) quills; coiled (2 rod and bundle of deer grass or basket grass)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 21.5 x 48 cm (8 7/16 x 18 7/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Native North America
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1917.482

A detail from the museum

The two small, pink crosses on this basket may be a maker’s mark.

Collection credit

Presented by William Albert Price in memory of Mrs. William Albert Price

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 64-67.
• Bergh, Susan E., "Unburied Treasure", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 45 no. 10, December 2005

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.