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Provenance:

Heintzman Family Collection, Cognashene, ON
Private Estate, Port Credit, ON

Note:

A masterwork of California basketry, this rare and important figural basket is attributed to the Wukchumni Yokuts weaver Mary Dick Topino, widely considered to be one of the foremost First Nations basket weavers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The weaving belongs to a family of monumental baskets that have come to be known as “Friendship Baskets”, in which the weaving’s central design element is a ring of figures joined by their hands. The present basket exhibits an exceptionally elaborate, and beautifully balanced composition, including 36 figures, bordered by a design of 14 abstract elements below, and a ring of 34 quadrupeds (possibly bears and dogs) above.

The basket was in the collection of the historic Heintzman family of Toronto, and was kept in the family cottage on Talbot Island in Georgian Bay until the basket passed to the ownership of the consignor’s family with their acquisition of the property in 1968.

A special thanks to the co-author of California Indian Basketry: Ikons of the Florescence, Eugene S. Meieran for his assistance in identifying the authorship of the present basket.

Wayne A. Thompson and Eugene S. Meieran, California Indian Basketry: Ikons of the Florescence (San Diego: Sunbelt Publications, 2021).