Lot 135
North America, Prairie Tribes, ca. early 20th century CE. This is a beautiful leather bag with a leather fringe, colorful ribbons, and multi-colored beaded decorations. The decorations are mainly white, with red, blue, pale blue, and yellow details; there are also a very few clear beads. Glass beads are a natural extension of Native American artwork; prior to the European arrival and the advent of glass in the Americas, tribes traded valuable bead material like shell or region-specific stone hundreds of miles to create artwork. Glass beads were some of the first trade goods that passed from Europeans to indigenous peoples in the Americas; by the 1840s, the standardization of manufacturing techniques in Venice and Bohemia, where these tiny glass "seed" beads were made, brought trading in bulk to the Americas. Different bead colors indicate different tribes; it seems most likely that, with these colors, this bag was made by a member of one of the following tribes: Sauk, Fox (Mesquakie), Kansas Potawatomi, Otoe, Missouria, Iowa, Ponca, Osage, Kaw, or Pawnee. Size: 9" W x 10" H (22.9 cm x 25.4 cm)
One interesting thing to note about this piece is the general level of cleanliness and lack of wear to the bag. Sotheby's American Indian Art catalogue (May 19, 1998) discusses this: "Many of the pieces in [this] collection seem in immaculate condition....For many people this would seem to show that they are not very old. However, the majority of these pieces were not in non-Native collections very long. Anyone who has had the privilege to collect directly from native people, or has been around them very long knows the reasons behind this. These pieces were kept in immaculate condition, carefully tucked away in trunks, to be used, and repaired, when needed. They were not hung on walls, slowly gathering dirt and grime. There were many times when I personally watched Crow and Blackfoot women carefully scraping their white bucksin dresses or men's buckskin outfits with the lid of a tin can. Dirt and grime were scraped away and white clay was rubbed into them to bring them back to the clean, new, fresh appearance that was desired. No one would consider wearing a 'dirty' buckskin outfit, no matter how old it was. In fact, one time at my store in Alberta, I had a Blackfoot woman bring in a set of 1860's parfleche containers. When I asked her why they were damp, she replied that they were too dirty to bring in before she cleaned them. Where Euro-Americans wanted 'patina,' Native people wanted 'newness' and cleanliness.'"
Provenance: Ex- Private Story collection, Denver, CO
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#113026
- Condition: Beautiful condition, with expected slight wear.
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