It is generally polished and it looks very shiny. Baleen is not to be confused with ink, which is also used on some carvings. It takes an additional talent to work with baleen. These baskets are hand woven from strips of whale baleen into the most incredible baskets. Each basket has an intricately carved piece of walrus ivory for the handle and a small circle of ivory for the base.
Baleen baskets are museum quality collector pieces.
This wonderful piece is just one example of some of the finest Alaska Native art available. Main Street Gifts has one of the largest assortments of these collectible art pieces in Southeast Alaska. We have many more items than can be shown here and would welcome the opportunity to send you photographs of other pieces in our collections.