Bowl

Description

This round wooden bowl has a long, curved handle and a slightly concave foot. The handle has beveled edges on its upper and lower surfaces and is rounded at its end. Utilitarian household items made from wood are sometimes called treen or treenware, terms which come from the word tree. This bowl was carved from burl wood – a knotty, irregular growth which can form on trees. Burl treen was commonplace in pre-colonial and colonial America, used among Native Americans and European settlers alike. Burls were plentiful in North American forests and their naturally round shapes easily lent themselves to the form of a bowl, while the wood’s interlocking grain made burl treen more durable and less subject to splitting than straight grain woodenware. This bowl is thought to have been carved by a Native American artist and has stylistic similarities with other handled bowls made by Eastern Woodlands peoples.