Lovely Penobscot Sweet Grass and Ash Splint Small Basket with Marvelous Color resting birds on nail stilts

on nail stilts

and clearly filled with admiration for these most iconic of fruits--one can just feel the painter arranging them under perfect cloud streaked blue sky to give them their full due

and a nice little mend over a split at the right end

Used for making lace

which I have tried hard to find out something about

Lovely Penobscot Sweet Grass and Ash Splint Small Basket with Marvelous Color resting birds on nail stiltsAn especially lovely and finely crafted small Penobscot basket, with more color than one usually finds on these. I don't believe antique but it definitely has some age to it, with the color on the dyed, woven splint of the lid softened with age, more so than on the sides and in clear contrast to the underside of the lid. With finely braided sweet grass alternating with the splint to create wonderful patterning. I've looked at a whole lot of these