Wine Bottle with Basketry Skin

This prestige item is composed of a 2nd half of the 19th century glass bordeaux shaped bottle covered with intricately woven basketry. The European glass bottle would have been a rare and special piece at the time as evidenced by the care lavished on its basketry shell. While the The patterning is typical of Congo textiles a group of baskets and basketry covered items of this type are in several German and other museum collections and were collected in Angola. It is an old technique with a 17th century example in the Ulmer Museum in Germany. It is extremely difficult to attribute this piece to a particular tribal group with any certainty.