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1886.1.1203

Barkcloth, with diamond hatched design.

1886.1.1203

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Collection type
Object
Description
Barkcloth, with diamond hatched design.
Long description
Barkcloth, with diamond hatched design. The cloth is stamped with three rows of diamonds - two crosshatched and the other plain. The cloth has a watermark. [MJD 17/06/2013]
Date / Period
Date made: On or before 1828
Date collected
1825 - 1828
Acquisition information
Transferred: 13/02/1886
Materials and processes
Material Bark Cloth Textile Plant, Material Pigment, Process Beaten, Process Stamped, Process Painted
Dimensions
Width: max 890 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.1203 Other numbers: 1121 267 - 303 Other numbers: Brigham (1911) 323 ?
Research and responses

This object does not appear in the list of Beechey objects in Collectors Miscellaneous XI 71 - 75 [AP 20/7/99]

This (or 1886.1.1205) is presumably the source of one of the specimens of barkcloth given by Henry Balfour to William T. Brigham, Director of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum; see Ka Hana Kapa (Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natual History, III; with separately boxed set of color plates), by William T. Brigham (Honolulu: Museum Press, 1911). On page 231 Brigham notes that his private collection contains many specimens 'gathered in visits to many museums, and sent by correspondents who desired to make the knowledge of bark-cloth manufacture more complete'. A list of 'Specimens of Kapa in the Author's Collection' follows (pages 240-49). This includes some 14 specimens given to Brigham by Balfour, including (on page 245) Brigham's number 323: 'A thin, mole, oiled kapa, dyed red and ruled with black in rhombs covering two-thirds of the surface. Collected by Captain Beechey, R. N., at Hawaiian Ids., 1825-1826. Given by H. Balfour, Esq.' The later history and current whereabouts of this and the other samples is not known. [JC 5 9 2003; JC 23 9 2003]

Please note that there was no further information about Beechey on the Donor Index cards at the Ashmolean Museum, Department of Antiquities. [L.Ph 23/3/2004]

This barkcloth was examined by Adrienne Kaeppler, Smithsonian Institute, on 13-14 June 2013. She noted this barkcloth has a watermark. [MJD 18/06/2013]

Search terms: Barkcloth

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