COCO DE MER BASKET
1800s. Owned and extensively used by artist Irma Stern
Provenance : originally Seychelles and then Cape Town
£555
Dimensions
L 30 cm (12") W 32.5 cm (13") H 17 cm (7")
Description
Coco de Mer seed pods have long been honoured and prized for their gorgeous sensual forms. They are the largest seeds in all Nature. For millenia, nations fringing all around the Indian Ocean considered them otherwordly fruit, offered up by undersea trees, "floating upwards" through the water. Imbued with such magic and mystique, if found they were to be immediately gifted to chiefs and kings.
Centuries of sailors, on finding the pods afloat on southern oceans often far from their one, true home of the Seychelles' beaches (where they grow on only two of the archipeligo's islands), found the sculptural forms powerfully reminiscent and evocative of life and its comforts ashore in port or home.
The botanical name Loedoicea callipyge is classical Greek for "beautiful buttocks".
This basket belonged to Irma Stern (1894-1966), South Africa's virtuoso, exuberant, expressionist, painter and sculptor, her country's foremost and most valuable artist. Born in South Africa, studying also in Europe in her 20s, from the 1920s Stern garnered acclaim and prizes at international exhibitions in London, France and New York as well as Cape Town and her work continues to be held by museums and galleries throughout the world, with a record US$ 5m price paid at auction in 2011. She was a renowned traveller, collector and specialist in African art and artefacts.
Having collected this basket on her travels Stern gave it pride of place in her studio for many years - as flecks and small splashes of paint testify - to hold her pots and brushes. On her passing it was given to a dear lady friend and thence by family descent to her grand-daughter.
The jagged-cut design is fabulously timeless and at once powerfully geometric, elemental and decorative. The basket would have been formed in the 1800s.
Immensely versatile in the house, this basket evokes wonderful and historic connections of avant-garde and modern art, human needs and primordial beliefs.
It's a thrill to use and view in everyday life and exceptional to have lovely, unique and important provenance for a tactile, beautiful and practical vessel.
Stock No. 2006
