Bowl

Description

This wide bowl has an oval form and a flat base. Two of its sides are slightly raised and pierced by rounded cutouts, forming handles. 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. The shape and construction of this bowl suggest it was created by a Native American artist, possibly of the Iroquois or Lenape cultures.