Browse

Accession #	50.67.161
Culture	Hodinöhsö:ni’
Culture	Delaware
Culture	Eastern Woodlands
Title	Bowl
Date	early 19th century
Medium	Wood, brass
Dimensions	7 1/4 x 14 x 14 in. (18.4 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm)
Credit Line	Henry L. Batterman Fund and the Frank Sherman Benson Fund
Location	American Identities: Colony to Nation / Inventing American Landscape
Description	Wooden bowl with schematic faces carved in relief on two vertical, stepped-shaped, rim lugs, which are located opposite each other. The wood grain shows on the bowl along with some dark stains in the interior bottom. The brass is a Native repair. Wooden bowls with images generally were treasured and inherited, passed from generation to generation.

Curatorial Remarks: Nineteenth-century depictions of Native people by European colonizers have long obscured the cultural vibrancy of Indigenous artistic traditions, as exemplified by this delicately carved wood bowl adorned with two human faces in relief. A brass plate covering a large crack on one side shows that the owner repaired it, indicating that the bowl was a treasured item likely passed down from generation to generation. If it was collected in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in the 1830s, it may have traveled with Lenape refugees fleeing north to Wisconsin or Ontario, Canada.