A sailor made macrame basket, late 19th century or so, as large as I've see and rather amazingly still with its lid (with very sweet scalloped edge) and with this unusually wide, open weave on the sides, pushing the limits of the basket form and making it feel equally like a cage in which one might carry home a canary--or a live fish! (Found in Maine, I might think it was a lobster trap that inspired it!)  As I’ve said before, antique sailor-made baskets always feel like such special things to me, crafted from fishing twine while out at sea; I really like the image of sailors finely knotting these baskets to kill time, and also the idea that they, like sailor’s valentines, were made as love tokens to be gifted upon return. And those that have endured seem to affirm that those sailors themselves were very loved! 

8 3/8" d x 5 1/8" t. Because of the way it was made with such a wide weave, there is a little inward slumping of the perimeter wall in a couple spots, as shown. (The basket is pliable though, so when the basket is stuffed with something they push out straight.) Fairly minor in any case, and the lid fits over it just right. The surface shows its original fairly light coat of old varnish/shellac, which gives it its color, somewhat variegated now. Photos give a good sense.