Figure

Item number 3260/37 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

Public

Item Records

This page shows all the information we have about this item. Both the institution that physically holds this item, and RRN members have contributed the knowledge on this page. You’re looking at the item record provided by the holding institution. If you scroll further down the page, you’ll see the information from RRN members, and can share your own knowledge too.

The RRN processes the information it receives from each institution to make it more readable and easier to search. If you’re doing in-depth research on this item, be sure to take a look at the Data Source tab to see the information exactly as it was provided by the institution.

These records are easy to share because each has a unique web address. You can copy and paste the location from your browser’s address bar into an email, word document, or chat message to share this item with others.

Data
Data Source

This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Wooden sculpture of a human figure with a carved dish, or bowl, on the back of a slave. The main figure is kneeling and holding a bulging bentwood-style dish, balanced on the back of another smaller figure, who is crouched down on all fours and looking out from the front of the base.

History Of Use

The generous presentation of food to the assembled guests is an essential component of Northwest Coast feasts and potlatches, today as in the past. That moment of offering is what the carver of this sculpture chose to depict, albeit with the bulging food dish supported on the back of a crouching figure who likely represents a slave -- a further symbol of the host’s wealth. In this miniature form the food dish appears weighty because the artist carved it in scale to an actual large bentwood dish. The carefully chiselled texture on the surface of the dish is in proportion relative to the parallel adzing on a full-sized vessel, and the texturing on the larger figure is similarly comparable to the adzed surface of a house post or totem pole.

Iconographic Meaning

The style of the kneeling person’s face and elaborate head covering differs from typical Kwakwaka’wakw or other Northwest Coast representations. It is reminiscent of designs found on ships. The bulging bowl implies abundance.

Narrative

Purchased by the donor through a Sotheby's auction in 2009. According to their information, the piece came from a private English collection and, previously, the G. Terasaki collection in NY. Exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983, and said to be published in Zena P. Matthews' "Color and Shape In American Indian Art" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983, page 8, fig. 3). Also published in Evan Mauer's "The Native American Heritage" (Art Institute of Chicago, 1977, #418).