SEAL GREASE BOWL
Tlingit, 19th century.
Wood inlaid with abalone, beads, bone, and opericulum shells.
17" l x 7.75" w x 4" h (43 cm x 19.5 cm x 10 cm)
This large, animated carved wood sculpture of a Seal with bright eyes of inset abalone, bold, flared nostrils, and an exaggeratedly ferocious parted mouth of bared opericula teeth, is also a Grease Bowl of rather small demensions: 6.5" x 3.5". It is deeply undercut and hovers and glides in space on the unseen bottom of the small bowl's cavity. The tail fins are backswept and open-cut, the head bouyantly upswept, while the body-bowl is richly engraved and inlaid and slopes downward. Seen from above the seal is an elegantly elongated ovoid form. The functional bowl is entirely integral to the corpus of of the seal captured in full watery motion (it carries within it echoes of native boats and canoes). Bowls such as this were conceived and created to demonstrate wealth and power of its owner in the fabled potlach ceremonies, and in all its rich aspects retains the status and prestige reserved for great works of art.

  
 

CROUCHING MAN PIPE
Haida, argillite, ca. 1850
5" l x 3.75" h x 1.25" thick (13 cm x 9.5 cm x 3.5 cm)
This superb Hiada tobacco pipe dates from the earliest period of
argillite carving and represents one of its highest achievements. It
presents the original user and us as viewers with a powerfully dense
and compressed and fully three-demensional group of three
interlocking figures from Haida mythology. The regnant Eagle
confronts the user as he looks down on a crouching frog atop the
crouching man. This fully functional pipe, made for the hand, is
wonderful to hold and behold! It's lustrous stone is pierced through
to accentuate the sculptural qualities that make this a great work of
native American Art.