Six Important Lots with Exceptional Histories

The history of an item, or its provenance, establishes the chain of ownership of an item and is a crucial component of the authentication process. It also can significantly impact the value of an item, in terms of its importance and financial value. Our Historic First Nations Art auction features several items with extraordinary histories; we’ve written about six lots below.

Unidentified Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Artist
PAIR OF BEADED HIDE MOCCASINS BELIEVED TO BELONG TO CHIEF RED CLOUD (MAHPIUA LUTA), FOURTH QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

An important, and ornately beaded pair of 19th century Plains moccasins in the Lakota style, the present footwear is identified in C. Frank Turner’s collection notes as having belonged to the important Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta). An early tag accompanying the moccasins bears a pen and ink inscription reading: “Moccasins given by Professor O.C. Marsh to Mc Hughes, said to have belonged to Chief Red Cloud Sioux Indians”.

Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) [O.C. Marsh] was a Yale University professor, and pioneering paleontologist most commonly remembered for his contributions to a period of frenzied discovery, and bitter rivalry with Harvard professor and fellow paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897). Over the years 1877 to 1892 the two paleontologists vied for preeminence in the burgeoning field of paleontology in what has come to be known as “The Bone Wars”.

Marsh first met Red Cloud in 1874 initiating a series of sometimes tense but ultimately peaceful encounters near the border of the Dakotas, south of the Black Hills (Pahá Sápa). The two met again when Red Cloud traveled as a guest of Marsh to Yale in 1883.

Red Cloud was a principal chief of the Oglala Lakota who in the late 1860s successfully resisted the U.S. government’s development of the Bozeman Trail to newly discovered goldfields in Montana Territory. Not subject to a hereditary title, Red Cloud emerged as a leader and spokesman of his people through the force of his own character, and exploits of bravery in a time of violent transition and change. Red Cloud led his people to peace with the U.S. Government, and settlement at the Red Cloud Agency, in Nebraska in 1868 before decamping to Pine Ridge Agency in 1878 due to poor conditions at Red Cloud Agency.

It is not clear at what time Marsh may have acquired the moccasins from Red Cloud, however both interactions might have afforded Marsh the opportunity to acquire a pair of moccasins. The two men required something of each other in 1874, and their exchange seems to have fostered a lasting relationship. Marsh had sought protection, and right of passage from Red Cloud. The protection was needed for Marsh’s planned excavation and extraction of fossils from the disputed Black Hills. Red Cloud in-turn sought from Marsh much needed leverage lobbying the U.S. Government to uphold the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty. The implementation of the treaty had been subject to gross neglect and consistent corruption on the part of the Government.

The early tag accompanying the moccasins indicates that they were gifted by Marsh to an Mc Hughes, presumably Thomas McKenny Hughes (1832-1917), a Professor of Geology at the Woodwardian Museum of Cambridge, with whom Marsh had a lasting correspondence.[1] While the path of the footwear from Hughes to eventual ownership by C. Frank Turner is unknown, an additional collection note from Turner offers the name “Seeley”, along with a Toronto address, and a purchase price for the moccasins. While “Seeley” may refer to Harry Govier Seeley (1839-1909), an assistant at the Woodwardian Museum of Cambridge, the significance of the further address of an unidentified Toronto resident remains as yet unknown.[2]

[1] Hughes, McKenny, 1891-1899, From the Collection: Marsh, Othniel Charles, 1831-1899, Archives at Yale, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/2020180
[2] Douglas Palmer, “Thomas McKenny Hughes – a hundred years ago”, The Geological Society of London, https://web.archive.org/web/20211024161657/https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/Archive/March-2018/Thomas-McKenny-Hughes-a-hundred-years-ago
Othniel Charles Marsh, “A statement of affairs at Red Cloud Agency : made to the President of the United States”, Smithsonian Libraries, https://archive.org/details/statementofaffai00mars/page/n3/mode/2up
Arthur Mullen, “Red Cloud Visits a Friend.; The Great Indian Chief the Guest of Prof. Marsh in New-Haven.”, Roger Sherman House, https://rogershermanhouse.com/2019/10/21/red-cloud-visits-a-friend-the-great-indian-chief-the-guest-of-prof-marsh-in-new-haven/
Fran Adams, O.C. Marsh, Chief Red Cloud and the Thunder Horses (Independent Publisher, 2020)

Attributed to Mary Dick Topino (1863 or 1868-1923), known as “Mrs Britches”, Wukchumni Yokuts
PICTORIAL IMBRICATED FRIENDSHIP BASKET, CA. 1900

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. This 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).

Unidentified Haida or Tshimshian Artist
SEAL FORM GREASE BOWL, 18TH OR EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Stalked for meat, skin, and most of all, the rich sustaining blubber from which oil may be derived, the seal furnishes much of the basic sustenance required for survival in northern climates. It is the all important oil from the seal, which seal form bowls were created to hold. It is the bounty of the harvest which the seal makes possible that dictates the form of the bowl, in which so often the artist, as here, has emphasized the full, swollen belly of the animal. As in other bowls of this type, the lobes of the seal’s tail appear pinched together, a posture taken when the creatures are land-bound, the time when they are most often hunted.

The present example was most likely carved by a Tshimshian or other Northern artist in the late 18th or early 19th century. The bowl exhibits an exceptional clarity of form, and richness of colour. The once lightly toned wood appears lustrous and dark, with a thick sticky patina on the interior resulting from exuding oil that has saturated the wood.

Acquired circa 1900 during the travels of Washington resident Olive Berthusen (b. 1881), or earlier by her father, a Washington sailor named Jack Stone. The bowl was willed to the city of Lynden, Washington upon Berthusen’s passing in 1937, displayed at the Lynden library, and later Lynden Pioneer Museum before being deaccessioned in 2009.[1]

[1] Troy Luginbill, “The Berthusen Collection from the Lynden Pioneer Museum, Lynden Washington”, Bonhams Native American Art Auction, December 14 2009 (San Francisco: Bonhams, 2009)

Captain Richard Carpenter (Du’klwayella) (1841-1931), Heiltsuk (Bella Bella)
BENTWOOD CHEST, CA. 1900

Widely known as Captain Carpenter, the talented and prolific carver and painter is perhaps the best known artist that worked in the Heiltsuk tradition. Over his long career, which spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Carpenter produced a remarkable number of carved chests and boxes for which he is well known and highly respected.

Born in the Heiltsuk village of ’Qvuzvai in 1841, Carpenter spent most of his life in, or near Bella Bella (the present site of Waglisla). In 1900 at the age of 60, Carpenter was employed as the first lighthouse keeper of the Dryad Point lighthouse north of Waglisla, where he continued to make objects for ritual use, as well as sale and trade.

The painting on this chest is representative of Carpenter’s later style, with its looser, less formal hand. The walls of the chest are kerfed and steam-bent from a single board in typical fashion. His characteristic slender black formlines, large areas of unpainted ground, and wiry thin red formlines notably embellish the top of the chest, as well as the sides. On one side of the chest Carpenter has partially concealed the fitting of a dutchman, or square plug to remove a section of unworkable knotted timber from the chest.

Numerous important examples of Carpenter’s work were acquired by museums over his career, some commissioned directly from Carpenter. However, it is only in recent years with the increased scholarship around Heiltsuk art, and with the generous assistance of Carpenter’s family, that the authorship of many of his works have been correctly identified.

[1] Bill McLennan & Karen Duffek, The Transforming Image: Painted Arts of Northwest Coast First Nations (Seattle: University of Washington Press / Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2000), 220-241.
[2] Martha Black, Bella Bella: A Season of Heiltsuk Art (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum / Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997),110-113.

Unidentified Haida Artist
PANEL PIPE, FOURTH QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

So-called panel pipes were made for trade and sale, but never for smoking. They were carved from argillite, a carbonaceous shale that was historically the property of a sole Haida Skidegate Eagle clan. The unique and beautiful material was favoured early on by Euro-American seamen, traders, missionaries, and anthropologists looking for mementos of the exotic Coast. Panel pipe carving has gone on to attract some of the greatest Haida artists of the past two centuries.

The present example is alleged to have passed by descent through the family of Royal Navy Surgeon and important amateur anthropologist, and painter John Linton Palmer (1824-1903).

Palmer participated in several significant British naval expeditions in the Pacific in the mid-19th century, both painting and collecting anthropological and Natural History specimens in-situ. His early travels included visits to Vancouver in 1851, and later Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in 1852 aboard the HMS Portland, and again in 1868 aboard the naval frigate HMS Topaze.

Although Palmer’s extensive documentation of his travels and findings are not currently published, his collections are held in the British Museum, and his archive of paintings is preserved at the Royal Geographical Society.

Royal Geographical Society, “John Linton Palmer’s Rapa Nui Album”, https://www.rgs.org/our-collections/stories-from-our-collections/explore-our-collections/john-linton-palmer-rapa-nui-album
“John Linton Palmer”, The British Museum online collection note. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG126950

Chief James “Jim” Hunter (1868-after 1938), Makah
STELLER’S JAY RATTLE MADE FOR HAL GEORGE, QUILEAUTE, FIRST QUARTER 20TH CENTURY

Made in the form of a Steller’s Jay, the present rattle was carved by Chief James “Jim” Hunter, a resident of Neah Bay and son of the last Chief of the Ozette Village near the Northern tip of Neah Lake close to the Washington coast.[1] The rattle was owned by an important elder on the Quileute reservation, Harold “Hal” George (1894-after 1978), and was acquired by the dealer, Jack Curtright in 1992 from Harold George’s daughter Gloria George, after a fire had damaged the rattle and burnt down the George Family home on the LaPush reservation.[2]

James Hunter was a carver of Sea Wolf headdresses, rattles, paddles, and model canoes in the 1920-30s, carving both for his community and for the market, selling his carvings at the Queets Cabins Store, as well as at Hoh River and Neah Bay.[3]

Harold George was active in the preservation of Quileute-Makah traditions, and was well known in the LaPush community as a storyteller. When the anthropologist Leo J. Frachenberg visited LaPush and the surrounding area in preparation for his 1921 publication The Ceremonial Societies of the Quileute Indians, George was a principal informant, noted by Frachenberg as speaking English in addition to Quileute and Makah.[4]

[1] Various Authors, Told By the Pioneers: Tales of Frontier Life as Told by Those who Remember the Days of the Territory and Early Statehood of Washington (Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2010), 20.
[2] Personal correspondence with Jack Curtright, 2020.
[3] Ibid
[4] M. Terry Thompson, Salish Myths And Legends: One People’s Stories (Nebraska: Univ of Nebraska Press, 2008), 213.

About the Auction

Featuring historic objects made both for sale, and for everyday use, the art and craftwork in this auction spotlights continuity and innovation in diverse First Nations traditions. Highlights include an important lifetime collection of over 35 objects of Mi’kmaq quillwork, assembled over 30 years of dedicated collecting, as well as selections from the collection of author C. Frank Turner, including a pair of moccasins once gifted by the important Oglala Chief, Redcloud.

View the auction online.

Bidding starts to close on Thursday, September 11, 2025 at 3 PM ET.

Previews at our Toronto gallery are available:
Sunday, September 7 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, September 8 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, September 9 from 10 am to 5 pm
Or by appointment.

Please contact us for more information.