Etched Birch Bark Cylindrical Container with Lid, Depicting a Teepee and Tree

Label

This container is made with birchbark, a material that the Passamaquoddy peoples often used to make waterproof objects like vessels and canoes. To make the designs, the artist scratched away the dark layer of bark to reveal the lighter layer underneath. This container depicts a teepee that would be used for shelter and a tree that acknowledges the connection between artmaking and the natural environment. In the 19th century, Passamaquoddy artists began making objects intended for sale to tourists and collectors. Due to these artistic exchanges, many birchbark artworks, including this container, eventually became a part of museum collections across the United States.

From the 2026 exhibition Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, curated by Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow), Michael Hartman (former Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), and Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections)

Exhibition History

Native American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 8, 2011-March 12, 2012.

Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; February 7-August 29, 2026.

Provenance

Moses Kimball (1809-1895) Collection, Boston, Massachusetts; sold to George H. Browne (1857-1931) and Emily Robbins Webster Browne (1861-1942), Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 17, 1926; given (by Miss Ellen A. Webster, Mrs. Browne's sister) to present collection, 1942.

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