The Enduring Appeal of the Egg Basket

On Easter Sunday candy-colored baskets will be out in full force. But as anyone who raises chickens knows, these are the distant, tarted-up cousins of the real egg baskets — the sort that people use for daily egg gathering.

Vintage egg baskets have the simple, industrial beauty that America has fallen for recently, and homeowners are gathering them up to showcase their unpretentious charms.

There’s a practical reason the farmers of yesterday and today have used wire baskets to gather eggs: A flock of chickens can lay eggs up to three times a day in the summer, so these baskets get a lot of use. They need to be tough and easy to clean.

According to a 1949 agricultural text published by the University of Nebraska, Good Eggs Sell Better, the fact that wire baskets allow air to circulate around and cool off the eggs makes them ideal vessels. On farm-implement sites, the baskets are advertised as perfect for easy washing and fast drying of eggs.

But it’s the simple, sculptural form that’s captured the imaginations of today’s collectors. In this room, by Wells & Fox Architectural Interiors, a row of (mostly) egg baskets hanging from the ceiling almost reads as modern art. It’s a great accent to an impressive crockery collection and a rooster weather vane.


Vintage and reproduction egg baskets can be found en masse at flea markets and online (old ones run about $30; newer models can be less expensive).

Many of them are being repurposed for modern workaday uses. In this home the designers at Jessica Helgerson Interior Design used a row of the baskets to hold shoes under a mudroom bench.


Interior designer Jennifer Grey of The Old Painted Cottage used a large egg basket to display a collection of old, rolled French land deeds. She notes that because you can see through the baskets, they are perfect for showcasing something you want to be contained but visible. “I love using them in interiors,” she says. “I like the juxtaposition of old wire and old wood.”


At the top of a bookshelf in this home by Witt Construction, an egg basket that holds a branch arrangement fits neatly under an arch.


Egg-like baskets make a spot-on aesthetic statement in lighting over a farmhouse table in a room by The Design Atelier. With the lights off, they make a great statement. With the lights on, we are betting the wire makes for interesting patterns around the walls.

The age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, may never be solved. Regardless, the basket may have been the third addition to the coop.

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