Beacon Lights
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.This fine basket, with a balanced form, meticulous motif spacing, and more than eighty thousand stitches, reveals Keyser’s exceptional dexterity and command of the medium. Keyser’s longtime patrons, Abe and Amy Cohn of Carson City, Nevada, fabricated a story that she had inherited the right to weave this basket’s shape and that the motif represents Washoe signal fires—hence the title, Beacon Lights. In fact, the gifted artist invented both the basket’s form and its motif. It created quite a stir in 1914 when collector G. A. Steiner paid $1,400 for it, a large sum at the time.
Artwork Details
- Title: Beacon Lights
- Artist: Louisa Keyser (Washoe, ca. 1831-1925)
- Date:
July 1, 1904–September 6, 1905
- Geography: United States, Nevada
- Culture: Washoe
- Medium: Willow, western redbud, bracken fern root
- Dimensions: H. 11 1/4 × Diam. 16 in. (28.6 × 40.6 cm)
- Classifications: Basketry, Basketry-Sculpture
- Credit Line: Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY (T0751)
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing