UNIDENTIFIED TLINGIT OR TSIMSHIAN ARTIST
unsigned.
LOT 28
ESTIMATE: $10,000 — $15,000
PRICE REALIZED: $7,800.00
Further images
Rather shorter than a typical speaker’s staff, at just under three feet tall, this may have functioned as a walking stick for an elderly ritualist. It was made from a remarkable piece of wood, grown with a right angle that was trimmed down to become a handgrip. The thin shaft is embellished with slender totemic figures only a little larger than the staff itself. The two figures, a wolf and a human, are snugly entwined on the staff. The sculpture of the wolf’s head reflects a Tsimshian sensibility in the formation of the eye socket, snout, and nostrils. The human figure exhibits a face style that could be either Tsimshian or Tlingit, suggesting that the staff’s origin might have been among the southern Tlingit of Tongass village, where Tsimshian sculptural influences can be seen among the totem poles and other carvings from that region.
Steven C. Brown
Provenance
The Ralph and Patricia Altman Collection, Southern California;A New York Collection.
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