Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Intermittently feathered three-rod coiled basket
Pomo (probably Elem Pomo, Lake County, California)
Not on view
In earlier times, ornamented coiled baskets were made to be gifts, payment for services rendered, trade items, and objects of ritualized exchange during important life events. They incorporated materials both beautiful and valuable, such as ivory circles of clamshell disk beads—a traditional form of currency—or scattered tufts of scarlet acorn woodpecker feathers. These baskets were a form of Native wealth, cherished for their beauty and craftsmanship, not their practicality.
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