Mary W. asked “What is the latest item added to your collection?”
The most recent acquisition at the museum is this group of four baskets. The baskets are an accretion or addition to the Teleki Collection, which consists of more than 300 baskets collected by Gloria and Deneb Teleki and donated to the Maxwell Museum over the past 15 years. Although the Teleki Collection consists primarily of baskets from North America, their collection is global in scope.
Of the four baskets received this year, three are from Japan and made in the 1970s (the three baskets pictured at left). These are woven bamboo Ikebana baskets. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging, so these were likely intended for such arrangements.
The fourth basket (pictured at right) is an antique fishing creel (ca. 1890-1900) from North America. It has its original leather straps and a hand-carved wooden lid with incisions marking the legal trout length.
Post by Lauren Fuka and Lea McChesney
Additional Resources:
To learn more about Japanese bamboo weaving by a National Living Treasure, check out this video https://youtu.be/mFfl0InKTvI
Further Reading:
Teleki, Gloria Roth. The Baskets of Rural America. New York: Dutton, 1975.
Teleki, Gloria Roth. Collecting Traditional American Basketry. New York: Dutton, 1979.
Gloria Roth Teleki conducted extensive research on baskets and wrote two books on basket collecting: The Baskets of Rural America and Collecting Traditional American Basketry.
