Anonymous
Fist Grasping Ball Folk Art Cane.
c. Late 1800s.
Not signed.
Carved, painted and stained wood.
Snake with jeweled eyes.
Overall length 38".
Very good antique condition with wear and losses commensurate with age and usage.
Provenance: Collection of Jim and Ilona Fleming, Canada.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $500-$800.
Ship: $45

The Fist Grasping Ball Folk Art Cane offered here is a gorgeous survivor with wear in all the right places. Possibly a slave's cane, as the design shown here was popular among freed slaves in the years following the Civil War to which this piece dates. In addition to the fist grasping a golden ball, the one-piece body of the cane shows a frog with faded green paint scurrying up the cane's shaft to avoid a pursuing snake. The intricacy of the carved-in scales all over the snake's body is amazing. Above the frog near the top of the cane are cuff-like bands leading up to a firmly clenched, and very detailed, fist.

The three canes and folk art war club which follow are from the Jim and Ilona Fleming Collection of North American Folk Art. Jim Fleming (born 1939) is a former Canadian broadcaster and politician. In 1972, Fleming entered politics and was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Liberal Member of Parliament for York West in the Toronto area. After the 1980 election, he was named to the cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as Minister of State for Multiculturalism. When his political career ended in the mid-1980s, Fleming and his wife Ilona turned a love for antiques and folk art into a business and became dealers at the Bowmanville, Rhinebeck, Adirondack and NY Pier Shows. They are now retired.