Nantucket Purse by Jose Formoso Reyes, with Nancy Chase Gull, signed and dated 1964

Nantucket Purse by Jose Formoso Reyes, signed and dated 1964, a beautiful oval woven Nantucket basket, having a cane weave on rattan staves, carved swing, scrimshaw carved whale tooth clasp, peg, and knobs, and whale bone large flying gull by Nancy Chase on Rosewood top, signed and dated on the bottom Made In Nantucket, Jose Formoso Reyes, 1964, with image of island.

The purse  remains in excellent condition, with a lovely warm honey patina. it is especially nice to see a Reyes basket with the Stevie Gibbs style carved bone clasp rather than a cane wrapped loop to hod the peg.

Jose Reyes (1902 – 1980) was born in the Philippines and moved to Nantucket immediately following World War II in 1947. He met Mitchy Ray, the last person on island still making Nantucket baskets at that time, and learned the craft. Within a few years Jose adapted the traditional Lightship basket form to a purse by adding a lid and a swing handle, launching the modern era in the Nantucket basket saga. While Reyes began making his purses in the very late 1940s, he did not begin dating them until 1960. Reyes remains highly revered and collected as a great innovator and the inventor of the Nantucket Purse.

Nancy Chase (1931 – 2016) was a life-long Nantucket resident and descendant of whaling captains, carpenters, Chases and Coffins. She practiced her craft at her shop on Cobble Court (so named because her mother was picking up cobbles when she went into labor with Nancy) for over fifty years.

Learning to carve in wood while still a child, Chase took her first piece of ivory, a piece of whale jawbone given to her by her grandfather, and carved it into a map of Nantucket. The piece eventually graced the top of her mother’s lightship basket purse. Her career truly began when William Coffin, owner of Coffin Pharmacy where Nancy was working as a soda jerk, asked her to carve ivory sperm whale pins to sell to tourists. Years later, her carvings caught the eye of José Reyes, maker of the famous friendship basket purses with their scrimshaw decorations. Reyes approached Nancy to make 100 three-inch whales for the tops of his baskets. She agreed, eventually leaving her job at the Pacific National Bank to complete the order.

Deciding to turn her craft into a business, she opened Ivory Shop on Cobble Court with life-long friend Norma Minstrell. Known for the custom basket top ornaments she did for Reyes and other basket makers, her intricate carvings soon became favorites of tourists and lightship basket collectors. Some of her finest collaborations were with her sister, basket maker Susan Chase Ottison.

Measures: 5-7/8 in H x 6-3/4 in L x 5-1/4 in W