Art of the Weave
WHEN A NATIVE BASKET RAGE SWEPT across the United States between 1890 and 1912, Catherine Marshall Gardiner caught the bug. Considered the golden age of basket collecting, the period saw Gardiner amass one of the country’s most significant collections in her small town of Laurel, Mississippi.
Her charm, financial resources, and enjoyment of travel and an eye for the finest and the culturally significant brought her into the upper echelons of collectors. In 1923, Gardiner gave nearly 500 baskets of beauty and broad tribal representation to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in her Mississippi hometown. Named for a great-nephew of hers who died tragically young, the museum today counts the baskets as the impressive centerpiece
