Korallrot Basket Group

“Korallrot Basket Group” is a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly composed of six blown glass forms, two of which nest into a third, which itself nests into a fourth. Two other blown elements sit alongside. This grouping is from a series Chihuly named “Korallrot,” after the German name for the coral red glass he utilized. Chihuly began making his Basket Groups in 1977. They were inspired by Native American baskets of the Northwest Coast that Chihuly saw at the Tacoma Historical Society in Tacoma, Washington in the summer of 1977. “I remember being struck by a pile of Northwest Coast Indian baskets that were stacked on inside another. They were dented and misshapen, wonderful forms.” He made “about a hundred” glass baskets that summer and showed them at the Seattle Art Museum in Fall 1977.