This paper presents some results of recent research on the Madagascar collections assembled in the 1890s for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, by the American natural history collector William Louis Abbott (1860–1936). Here I survey a largely unpublished, unique and aesthetically striking collection of nineteenth-century plaited mats, assembled by Abbott in 1895. Abbott's collection was intended for study purposes within a contemporaneous (though now long-outdated) scientific framework of societal evolution as measured through comparison of material artefacts from different cultures. In collection storerooms, these objects have generally remained unused but carefully preserved, thus like some other nineteenth-century collections assembled for the study of long-forgotten theories, they are available today for reinterpretation and appreciation in light of twenty-first century purposes. Within the collection we often find that Abbott's detailed handwritten labels for his donated objects have been preserved, supplementing information located in Abbott's correspondence and field notes that are retained in various Smithsonian archives and repositories. The emphasis on mats within Abbott's collection presents a strong contrast to other Western collections from Madagascar, due to the importance that mats and basketry held for contemporaneous Smithsonian theories of societal evolution. Several recent studies of the art and weaving of Madagascar have noted the paucity of information about, and appreciation for, Madagascar's basketry and plaited mats, especially as compared to woven textiles.
