Ingmars Lindbergs
Director
Lot 55
A Haida painted basketry hat, possibly the work of Isabella Edenshaw (Kwii.aang) and Charles Edenshaw (Da.axiigang)
9 December 2025, 12:00 PST
Los AngelesUS$20,000 - US$30,000
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Kim Jarand
Specialist, Head of Sale
A Haida painted basketry hat
Possibly the work of Isabella Edenshaw (Kwii.aang), Haida, (1858–1926) and Charles Edenshaw (Da.axiigang) Haida, (c. 1839–1920), a twined, wide-brim basketry hat, the top of the crown with a raised edge, the lower portion/brim worked with a combination of two and three-strand twining to create a pattern of raised concentric diamond motifs, the rim finish braided, with a four-pointed red star atop the crown, painted in red and black to depict a long-snouted creature or bird with lengthy beak, limbs with formline details extended along the edge, a tail or fluke at the back underneath broad ears, the interior with headband, minor areas of restoration.
height 7in, greatest diameter 15 7/8in
height 7in, greatest diameter 15 7/8in
Footnotes
A hat similar in both construction and iconography to the present lot can be found in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University (Accession number 88-51-10/50504; seen online at https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/580700). Described as representing either a mythical sea grizzly or a bird, the execution of the face, front limbs and tail or fluke of the creature closely resembles this lot, along with the four-pointed red star at the crown.
See Andrea Laforet's essay "Regional and Personal Style in Northwest Coast Basketry", in Porter, Frank W., ed., The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Legacy, 1990, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, pp.281-297, wherein she discerns the features of Haida weaving that mark an individual weaver's distinctive style. For Isabella Edenshaw's hats, this is characterized by "...the appearance of the 'mamastiki' [concentric diamonds] motif in conjunction with four-ply twining (especially S-twining) at the perimeter of the top, the absence of special demarcation at the lower perimeter of the crown, and the use of four-strand braid... as brim finish when, and this is essential, the construction of the top, crown, and brim of the hat is in accord with the standard Haida formula." Ibid., p.295
Further, see Holm, Bill, "Will the Real Charles Edensaw Please Stand Up?: The Problem of Attribution in Northwest Coast Indian Art", an essay originally written in 1981 (utilizing an earlier spelling of the artist's last name) and reprinted in Charles Edenshaw, 2013, pp. 81-89. "Interestingly, eighteen painted spruce root hats which I have seen and firmly believe to have been painted by Charles Edensaw share a top painting of a four-pointed star with each point divided alternately red and black (fig.66). Are these top paintings the artist's signature? I'm more and more inclined to believe it. Several other hats, which seem to be Edensaw's work but which differ in composition from those eighteen have an all red four-pointed star design. They may be by another painter yet unidentified, or perhaps represent earlier Edensaw work." Ibid. p.86