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Copper
Haida or Tsimshian,
Northern British Columbia
ca. 1860-80
sheet copper, paint
28 ½" × 19 ¼"
Inventory # N4336
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PROVENANCE
Collection of Merton D. Simpson, New York
RELATED EXAMPLES
See: Holm, Bill. Box of Daylight. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984, pg. 95 for a discussion of coppers and their uses among Northwest Coast peoples
Brooklyn Art Museum, Cat. No. 16.749.1 – See: Brown, Steven C. Spirits of the Water: Native Art Collected On Expeditions to Alaska and British Columbia 1774 – 1910. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000, pg. 181
Eugene and Claire Thaw Collection, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY, Cat. No. T715 – See: Coe, Ralph T., Brydon, Sherry, Vincent, Gilbert T. (eds.) Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000, pgs. 344-345, for a Haida or Tsimshian copper collected by Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen in the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1939
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Cat. No. 85039 –See: Maurer, Evan. Native American Heritage: A Survey of North American Indian Art. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1977, pg. 297, pl. 459
Seattle Art Museum, Cat. No. 91.1.55 – See: Brown, Steven C. The Spirit Within. New York: Rizzoli, 1995, pg. 115, pl. 42
British Museum - See: Feest, Christian. Native Arts of North America. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980, pg. 72, for a stylistically similar copper, including red paint, collected by J.G Swan before 1876 and identified as Tlingit
Hastings photograph, 1894, Cat. No. 336106 of Kwakiutl Chief Wakgas of Koskimo holding a copper – See: Jonaitis, Aldona. Chiefly Feasts: The Enduring Kwakiutl Potlatch. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991, pg. 37, Fig. 4
Essay
COPPER
The copper is among the most enigmatic objects possessed by Northwest Coast peoples. Although the origin of the form is unknown, coppers represent immense wealth and prestige from the south coast to Alaska. Extant coppers are made from commercial sheet metal presumed to have been traded from sources in the interior. Prior to European contact they would have been made from local native material however there is no indication that the later coppers were of less value than their predecessors (Holm, 1984). Whatever their origins, coppers were valued relative to large numbers of blankets and later dollars, and served as important emblems of wealth and prestige among the noble families who possessed them.
