Sylvia Antiques
Antique Nantucket Lightship Baskets
As a third generation antiques dealer on the Island I have always been surrounded by Nantucket lightship baskets. Growing up they were ordinary and functional, like a pocketbook or magazine holder. I didn’t realize the collecting aspect or the charm of these baskets until I saw one off the island, where a woman in line at a store was asked about her purse, and she responded by saying, “ I bought it on Nantucket, and it’s the only place where they make them.” From then on I saw this ordinary functional item differently.
This also opened my eyes up to the folk art world in general. I scoured other shops and auctions for these baskets, eventually coveting the actual baskets made aboard the Lightships. I learned why they only got better with age, and noticed forms and their unlimited uses: to hold vegetables in the cold cellar, for berry picking in the fall, for carrying food to a neighbor and of course for necessary sewing and mending.
We usually have roughly two dozen lightship baskets in stock, made by weavers such as Roland Folger, Davis Hall, Andrew Sandsbury, Oliver Coffin, William Appleton, James Wyer to name a few.