Made of birch bark, flattened root, torn strips of red printed cloth with black patterend ribbon. Decorated with porcupine quills, natural and magenta, yellow, green and white. The quills were coloured with aniline dyes.

The box is made of birch bark panels cut and assembled to resemble the form of house. The roof has a scalloped edge, resembling a gabled house. The roof is composed of two panels tied together at the centre-top with ribbon, and functions as the box's lid.

The quillwork motifs resemble elements of a house, such as windows and shutters. There are two female figure wearing aprons, one standing in the door and another in a window. There are also over-sized flowers.

Ruth Phillips described this item is a "model of European domesticity."
In her book Trading Identities, Phillips explains that this item is an example of Anishinaabeg artists' desire to push the limits of their medium. She also describes the imagery as creating "a charming image of the Western ideal of domesticity that was being preached intensively to Aboriginal people during the latter decades of the nineteenth century," reflecting "romantic and assimilationist ideals of Indian life." It depicts "the Indian as farmer, settled in a frame house complete with a cultivated garden, curtains at the windows, and the little woman at the door." Its iconography is an exception to the more traditional floral imagery found on birch bark items made by the Anishinaabeg, and Phillips states "the fact that most are associated with white men of wealth and power suggests that Anishnabek artists chose to -- or were asked to -- pictorialize as a means of representing themselves and their way of life with particular clarity when creating gifts for visitors of status and power" (150-151).

RP stated that birch bark boxes in the shape of houses are commonly found in northern Michigan. She also described this item as a "model of European domesticity."

A display label in the item says this is when it was collected by "Father Edward Purbrick, S.J." Father Purbrick acquired this item, along with other similarly-quilled birch bark pieces, while on a tour of inspection of Canadian Jesuit missions in the Central and Eastern Great Lakes region.

Collected by Father Edward Purbrick in 1879 and subsequently donated to Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school in Lancashire. The Stonyhurst Collection was purchased by the British Museum in 2003.

July 2004 - 'Native American Art: Irish American Trade,' Ulster American Folk Park, Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

October 2004 - 'Native American Art: Irish American Trade,' Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

April 2005 - 'Native American Art: Irish American Trade,' Castle Museum, Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

Ruth Phillips, Trading Identities: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700-1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998), plate 20 and p.150.

A description of Father Edward Purbrick's collection and a discussion on the decorative styles of many of the birch bark items is found in Ruth Phillips, Trading Identities: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700-1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998), 182-3.

Unknown artist, house, model. Currently in the British Museum, Am2003,19.20. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip December 2007; GRASAC item id 27004.

This record was created as part of a Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum and British Museum, December 8-22 2007, funded by a grant from the International Opportunities fund of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Researchers present: Heidi Bohaker (HB), John Borrows (JB), Lindsay Borrows (LB), Darlene Johnston (DJ), Jonathan King (JK), Stacey Loyer (SL), Janis Monture (JM), Bruce Morito (BM), Ruth Phillips (RP), Cory Willmott (CW).