Basket weaving is one of the most ancient of all decorative crafts. It is thought that the idea to create vessels by interweaving twigs was conceived around the same time as the idea to chip shards of flint into arrowheads. Fragments of Neolithic-age pottery reveal that long before the invention of the wheel, potters molded clay around woven basket forms, while remnants of other Stone Age pottery bear surface decoration imitating basketwork. Though fired pottery is more durable than baskets, thanks to the arid climate of ancient Egypt many of the world's oldest baskets and basket fragments have been unearthed there, dating some three thousand years before Christ. Indeed, wherever there were twigs, reeds, tall grasses, or other weavable plants, basketry thrived.
Some of history's most beautiful bas-kets were produced in Japan, where the craft of plaiting bamboo was initially practiced on a utilitarian level during the Jômon period (10,000-300 bc). Bamboo, a grass, proliferates in hundreds of varieties throughout Japan, and while many varieties were and still are used in furniture and house construction, in culi-nary and medicinal preparations, and for other purposes, relatively few varieties were deemed suitable for basket weav-ing. “Among these is madake,” says Erik Thomsen, a prominent New York dealer in Japanese fine and contemporary art. "It is a larger diameter bamboo with a very straight grain that lends itself to splitting into fine strands for plaiting.” Another is houbi-chiku, usually of a small diameter, that a century ago or more was used to construct and finish farmhouse ceilings. “Over time these pieces aged while the fumes from heating and cooking imparted a fine, nat-ural patina that is highly treasured now,” Thomsen says, adding that "houbi-chiku is often salvaged from old farmhouses and can be used whole or split for plaiting.”
The restraint of Japanese basket design may mislead the uninitiated to believe that the art is simple. In truth mastering the art demands years of training. The weaving of a single basket takes months of meticulous labor, from the delib-eration over the design, through the selection of raw mate-rials and the complex plaiting and finishing processes.
The price range for art baskets is wide, and prices are based on the design and appeal of the shape, as well as the quality of the workmanship, the intricacy of the weaving, and the specific artist. An unsigned basket in good condition fetches from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand,” Thomsen says. Most signed baskets in good condition are priced in the four-figure range. Rare works in excellent condition by important artists with their original signedtomobako storage box can command $40,000 and more. Rare works by artists such as lizuka Ro-kansai and Chikuunsail can command equally high prices.
Courtesy : The Magazine Antiques
www.abacfoundation.org
