Birch Bark Napkin Ring (made for sale)
Anishinaabe (Ojibwe / Chippewa)
Great Lakes Woodlands
Woodlands
collected about 1904-1909
Birch bark, glass beads, and thread
Overall: 1 3/4 × 2 3/16 in. (4.5 × 5.5 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Bequest of Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill
46.17.9884
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Tools and Equipment: Food Service
Research Area
Native American
Native American: Woodlands
Not on view
Label
Using birch bark as a support, an Anishinaabe woman sewed beads in a floral motif onto this napkin ring. This artwork was designed for and purchased by White tourists and would have decorated an elegant dining room table. Can you imagine how this floral design might have looked with the large sideboard in this exhibition? Or with the floral engraved silver spoons nearby? Like our own homes today, houses in the early 1900s incorporated artworks from many cultures.
From the 2024 exhibition Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
English 39.01, American Fiction: 1950-1990, Kimberly Brown, Winter 2025
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2025
Spanish 3.01, Spanish III, Natalia Monetti, Spring 2025
Spanish 3.02, Spanish III, Natalia Monetti, Spring 2025
Anthropology 31.01, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 36.01, Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives, Sabrina Billings, Fall 2025
Studio Session: Beyond the Bouquet, Winter 2025
Special Tour: Attitude of Coexistence and Beyond the Bouquet, Winter 2025
Exhibition Tour: Attitudes of Coexistence and Beyond the Bouquet, Winter 2025
Exhibition History
Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 24, 2025 - January 10, 2026.
Provenance
Unknown maker, Wisconsin; collected by Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), Wisconsin, 1904-1909; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.
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