Beautifully hand crafted - and just right for that smaller spot to display it! This fabulous little basket is full of painstaking details -- yet is only 7 inches across the top and 8-1/2 inches at the very top of its handle (the woven basket is 4-3/4 inches tall). It weighs a minuscule 5 ounces. We believe it dates from around the earliest 1900s.

If you look at the first four pictures in order you will see all four "Sides" of this basket. Someone has lovingly cared for it over many years - we could find only ONE place where a horizontal weaver splint is broken. This is hidden under the rim and is VERY hard to notice.**

This basket is made of hardwood splints. It is most probably ash, but might possibly be oak. It has aged delightfully, darkening to a rich, deep chestnut color. The wood has correctly shrunken/dried over many years to an appealing "off-round" so the basket is not perfectly round, and also because of shrinkage the handle has taken on a charming tilt to the side that adds character and interest.

The weaver of this basket clearly was highly skilled, using very narrow pieces of ash or oak splints and weaving them very tightly so that it is extremely difficult to find any ends! The horizontal splints are about 1/4 inch wide, the vertical ones are about 3/8 inch wide. They are so tightly pushed together that almost no space is showing between. The bottom is pushed up inside, another characteristic of a talented craftsman.

The carved handle is a single piece of hardwood, shaved thin and skillfully bent. Notches carved into the handle sides attach it to the rim, and long tails that disappear into the weaving below, also helping to anchor it firmly in place.

PLEASE NOTE - Apparently a previous owner lightly and carefully clear coated this basket on the outside and on the handle. The inside does not appear to have been clear coated. We have left this as found.

** See our last three pictures -- The top horizontal weaver just below the rim is broken in one place (SEE where THE PINK Vs are pointing) and about 1-1/2 inches of it are missing. Unless you are looking specifically for damage, this is VERY hard to notice, and it does not seem to impact the integrity of the basket itself. The ONLY other less than perfect thing we want to point out is the end of the horizontal weaver around the outside of the rim is sticking out (SEE the YELLOW Vs). I don't think it was originally tucked under, but I am not a basket maker to really know.