AUGUSTUS BEAN (1850-1926) and RUDOLPH WALTON (1867-1951), TLINGIT, SITKA, ALASKA
Seal Form Grease Bowl, c. 1910-1915
wood, opercula, abalone, and glass trade beads, 4.25 x 12.25 x 6.75 in (11 x 30.5 x 17.3 cm)
unsigned.

Provenance
Private Collection, Calgary.

This superb Seal Form Grease Bowl is a classic example of one of the bowl designs created by the Tlingit artistic duo, and marketed through their shop in Sitka, Alaska. Walton and Bean were both superb craftsmen. They excelled at carving bold sculptural forms and carefully incised details, and inlaid and inset contrasting materials with great care. Although their sculptures were commercially successful, both Bean and Walton were inspired by a rich Tlingit art tradition.

References: For a similar example, see Robert Bruce Inverarity, Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950), fig. 199, as “Tribe: Unknown.” For other examples by the artists and brief information on the pair, see Erna Gunther, A Catalogue of the Ethnological Collections in the Sheldon Jackson Museum, (Sitka, Alaska: Sheldon Jackson Museum, 1976), cats. I.A.272, I.A.269, and I.A.271, I.A.295, p. 38-41. In the late 19th century, the Reverend Dr. Jackson maintained the school where both Walton and Bean learned to carve (op. cit., p. 39). See also Sheldon Jackson fonds, Sheldon Jackson Papers, Series V: Scrapbooks, 1894-1898, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Alaska Library Network, undated clipping. For a traditional Haida or Tlingit seal form bowl c. 1750, see Stephen C. Brown, Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Century, (Seattle Art Museum, 1998), p. 27. For a similar example of a Walton and Bean seal form bowl see Walker’s Auctions, Nov. 2015, Lot 97.