Why Tsimshian Grease Bowl matters
"Tsimshian grease bowl" is not the name of an individual artist. It is a cataloguing term used by museums, auction houses, and dealers for a traditional carved feast vessel made within Tsimshian culture of the Pacific Northwest Coast, historically used to hold oolichan (eulachon) fish grease and other foods at ceremonial feasts. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds an example it catalogues simply as "Bowl," culture Tsimshian, dated to circa 1780 to 1810. The entry matters to collectors precisely because it illustrates a case where a market label can be mistaken for an artist's name, and because it points to a broader, well-documented category of historic Northwest Coast Indigenous carving in which most makers went unrecorded.
- Media
- Carved wood, Ceremonial vessels
- Movement
- Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous art
- Education
- No individual maker's education is documented. Historic grease bowls of this type were carved within Tsimshian communities through apprenticeship and inherited craft knowledge, not through an art school or a single named practitioner.
- Signature motifs
- Zoomorphic carving (bear, eagle, frog forms), Bentwood and dugout bowl construction, Vessels for oolichan (eulachon) grease used in feasting
By the numbers
- Not establishedDocumented individual artistNo source confirms a named artist behind this term; it denotes an object type
- Metropolitan Museum of ArtConfirmed museum holdingBowl, Tsimshian culture, circa 1780 to 1810, wood
- Feast vesselTraditional useUsed to hold oolichan (eulachon) fish grease at ceremonial feasts
Biography
No biographical record, birth date, death date, or living status can be documented for an individual called "Tsimshian Grease Bowl," because no such individual has been identified in museum records, auction catalogues, gallery rosters, or art press. Institutional sources consistently describe grease bowls as a traditional object type produced by Tsimshian carvers, generally without an attributed maker, in the same way many historic Northwest Coast ceremonial objects were catalogued by culture rather than by name.
Named, documented Tsimshian carvers who work in this form today include David A. Boxley of Metlakatla, Alaska, a widely cited culture bearer and master carver, and Corey W. Moraes, who has made feast and canoe bowls attributed to him individually. These are separate, identifiable artists and should not be confused with the generic "Tsimshian grease bowl" catalogue description used for historic, unattributed pieces.
Critical reception
No named critic in a major outlet has published an exact, quotable assessment of a work identified specifically as "Tsimshian grease bowl," so no verbatim quotation is offered here. More broadly, curatorial and scholarly sources treat Tsimshian grease and feast bowls as significant ceremonial objects tied to the distribution of oolichan grease at feasts, and museums such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art present them within the wider context of Tsimshian material culture rather than as the work of a single named artist.
Market
No verified all-time auction record can be confirmed for a work catalogued as "Tsimshian grease bowl." A lot fitting that description, "Tsimshian Grease Bowl, Northern Northwest Coast, British Columbia," was offered by Sotheby's, reportedly in New York, in 2017 (sale N09619, lot 26), but the publicly accessible source material does not disclose a realized price or a precise sale date, so no figure or exact date can be reported. No other confirmed, directly comparable auction benchmark for this specific object type could be established from the available sources. Taken together, the public record does not support a reliable price benchmark for this object type.
Top auction results
| Work | Price | Sale |
|---|---|---|
| Tsimshian Grease Bowl, Northern Northwest Coast, British Columbia (lot description) (2017) | Sotheby's, New York |
Selected exhibitions
| Years | Exhibition | Venues |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Tsimshian: Art of the Indigenous People of the Pacific Northwest | Bisignano Art Gallery, University of Dubuque |
| Ongoing | Northwest Coast Hall, Tsimshian section | American Museum of Natural History, New York |
Museum collections
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Authentication and provenance
No catalogue raisonne.
There is no catalogue raisonne and no single artist's oeuvre to catalogue. 'Tsimshian grease bowl' is a museum and auction cataloguing term for a traditional carved feast vessel made within Tsimshian culture, most historic examples were made by unnamed carvers. Authentication for any individual bowl rests on provenance research, material and stylistic analysis, and institutional cataloguing conventions for historic Northwest Coast Indigenous material, not on an artist's studio or foundation.
Primary reference: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/717589
What collectors should know
Anyone encountering "Tsimshian grease bowl" in a catalogue description should treat it as an object type and culture attribution, not an artist's name. For historic examples, value and authenticity rest on provenance, material analysis, and the reputations of institutions or specialist dealers who have handled Northwest Coast material, such as Sotheby's, Bonhams, and Donald Ellis Gallery, rather than on any individual maker's signature or foundation. Collectors interested in contemporary work in this tradition should instead look to identifiable, living Tsimshian carvers, whose individual practices, training, and sales histories can be documented and verified directly.
Further reading and resources
Data current as of 2026-07-11.
