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Feast Bowl Fragment
Feast Bowl Fragment

Feast Bowl Fragment

Datec. 1890
DimensionsOverall: 16 3/4 × 41 in. (42.5 × 104.1 cm)
Object numberT0524
Credit LineLoan from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust
Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC
Label TextThis feast bowl fragment, one side of a central bowl that had attached flanking bowls, originally measured over 14 feet long. It represents the Sisiutl, an especially powerful serpent-like being associated with warriors. The right to use a great Sisiutl feast bowl was inherited through marriage among noble Kwakiutl families. It communicated the owner’s rights and privileges as a high ranking member of the community.
Exhibition History


ProvenancePrivate collection, Midwest; private collection, New Jersey; Sotheby's, New York City; George Shaw, Aspen, Colorado
BibliographySotheby's. Sale 4842. 24 April 1982, lot 433.

Advertisement for George Shaw. American Indian Art Magazine. Vol. 20, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 13.

Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.319.

Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 350.
On View
Not on view
Bowl
c. 1780
Button Blanket
Haida
c. 1880
Earring
Haida
c. 1880
Bowl
Haida
c. 1850
Dish
Haida
1820-1850
Ladle
Wishxam or Wasco
1820-1860
Bowl
1400-1500
Bowl
Coast Tsimshian (or Haisla?)
1860-1880
Speaker's Figure
Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl)
1880-1895
Potlatch Figure
Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl)
1880-1895
Bent-Corner Chest
Haida
1830-1860
Feast Ladle
Coast Tsimshian
c. 1840

5798 STATE HIGHWAY 80
COOPERSTOWN NY, 13326
607-547-1400

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