Solomon IslandsBasketry shield from the Solomon Islands, Oceania. Collected by Lieutenant Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville of HMS Penguin between 1893 and 1894.

Wicker fighting shields were only made in certain places in the Solomon Islands and were sold on to other islanders. This example comes from the village of Pondokona in New Georgia, the largest island in the Western Province of archipelago. It consists of coiled basket-work with a feather plume at the top and there is a hand grip of plant-fibre on the back.

Lieutenant Boyle Somerville, the British naval officer who collected this object while in the region from 1893 to 1894, observed that 'the handhole is often further protected by a piece of turtle shell, or several pieces of large leaf, stuck between it and the back of the shield'. Somerville also noted that such shields were of considerable value and were 'exceedingly difficult to procure' by the end of the nineteenth century, being traded only for a large whale tooth or sovereign.