Beaver Effigy Chair
CultureHeiltsuk (Bella Bella), British Columbia, Canada
Dateca. 1865
MediumWood (probably spruce and yew) and pigment
DimensionsOverall: 32 7/8 × 16 3/4 × 22 1/2 inches (83.5 × 42.55 × 57.15 cm)
Credit LineGift of Ralph T. Coe
Object number80-42/1
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 206
Collections
DescriptionChair in provincial Canadian form with Indian embellishments, the seat in the form of a flat beaver, its head at the front of the chair, its front paws gripping the seat on each side at the front, his tail forming the back splat with rises to meet the crest rail. The crest rail is carved and painted, center, with an animal face, probably a bear, and has faces in profile on each side of that forming the wings of the crest rail. The legs and stretchers are in typical Canadian style, the whole produced by a Haida carver.Gallery LabelAlthough this remarkable chair may first appear to be of Euro-American manufacture that was then altered by a Northwest Coast carver, it was actually carved in its totality by a Heiltsuk artist. An ingeniously conceived trans-cultural object, it may have been made for either a Heiltsuk chief or a non-native person or official. The seat is relief-carved in the image of a beaver, which holds a piece of wood in its mouth that simultaneously forms the front edge of the chair and whose tail extends upwards as part of the chair's back support. The paint is a combination of native and commercial pigments.
Torrence, Gaylord, ed. Continuum: North American Native Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
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