Baskets

Grass coiled into a peaked lid, tight as cloth. Handwoven antique baskets here come from Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Congo, South Africa, China, Japan and Southeast Asia. Tutsi agaseki baskets from Rwanda, with tall peaked lids and fine geometric patterns, were traditionally woven by women and given as gifts. Gurage bread baskets from Ethiopia come lidded, some with carrying straps, and Japanese ikebana baskets of bamboo and rattan were woven to hold flower arrangements.

There are Shanxi hand warmer baskets lined with terra cotta, Chinese rattan storage and table baskets, a Kuba lidded basket, a Zulu basket, a Yanomami flat basket from the Amazon, a Naga trumpet-form carrier from Nagaland, a Thai carrier with shoulder straps and a lacquered Burmese hanging basket. Tutsi insika panels show the same weaving flattened for the wall. Stack Rwandan baskets on a shelf in graduated heights, or use a rattan one for blankets beside the sofa. Built to carry things, they now mostly carry a room.