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A PLATEAU WOMAN'S PARFLECHE ENVELOPE CIRCA 1900

115: A PLATEAU WOMAN'S PARFLECHE ENVELOPE CIRCA 1900

The underrecognized parfleche 'envelope' was essentially a carrying case, a wallet or purse made exclusively by and for the women of various Native American tribes. As author, painter and curator American Meredith (Cherokee Nation) points out in her article PARFLECHES How Native Women Pushed the Envelope of Abstraction, the women who painted these utilitarian objects of high art employed abstraction and the tenets of non-objective composition hundreds of years before the earliest of 20th century Modernists. In the exhibition catalog for The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky, Gaylord Torrence wrote of parfleche envelopes, 'The containers were lightweight, unbreakable and weather-resistant, and their creation afforded women an important means of artistic expression....'

These expandable cases were used to carry food, clothing, tools, utensils (like perhaps a horn spoon) - various odds-and-ends of the day, some sacred. With the re-introduction of the horse to Native American culture in the 16th century, these large decorated carrying cases would hang displayed from a horse when traveling, or hung from their twig stand when in camp, again on display. So always they were projecting the creator's abstracted impression of her surroundings, perhaps mountains and lakes in this instance. Scholars believe Plateau examples like this were displayed horizontally, whereas Plains examples were utilized, and thereby displayed, vertically.
Measures 27 x 13 inches.
Very good condition, noting wear as shown.
$500 - $700

Historic and Contemporary Native American Arts

Saturday, November 12th 2022


SOLD - $750

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