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Basket bowl

Carrie Bethel Mono Lake Paiute
1929
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 746
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.
Master weaver Carrie Bethel’s artistic genius is seen in the creative, multicolored backgrounds and designs she produced using materials from the landscape, such as sedge root. This large-scale basket took her three years to complete, and it is the earliest of five monumental works she created. She was awarded the best basket prize of $50 for this piece in the 1929 Yosemite National Park Indian Field Days competition, organized by the park service to encourage basketry as an art form. She later sold the work for $180, a large sum at the time.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Basket bowl
  • Artist: Carrie Bethel (Mono Lake Paiute, 1898–1974)
  • Date: 1929
  • Geography: Made in Mono Lake, California, United States
  • Culture: Mono Lake Paiute, Native American
  • Medium: Willow shoots, sedge root, redbud shoots, and dyed bracken root
  • Dimensions: 9 × 19 1/2 in. (22.9 × 49.5 cm)
  • Credit Line: Loan from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection
  • Object Number: L.2018.35.61
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing