Greenlandic Down Blanket Lot n° 11

Greenland, 1900's Eider duck, auk, and arctic loon skin, textile 116 x 75 cm Provenance: Acquired in Greenland in the 1960s Private collection "The Moravian missionaries of northern Laborador showed me some beautiful eider-down blankets which were made by the Eskimos of Greenland for sale in the Danish markets; they were made of the breasts of eiders from which the feathers had all been plucked, leaving the down on the skins, which had been cured so that they were very soft and pliable; the edges of the blankets were trimmed with the cured skins of the heads of many northern and king eiders, making very attractive borders. They were the softest, lightest, warmest, and most beautiful blankets I had ever seen, and I was told that they brought such fancy prices that they were beyond the reach of ordinary mortals." Arthur Cleveland Bent, Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl: Order Anseres (part), Washington Government Printing Office, 1925, p.91