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Exhibition HistoryMuseum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, MA, December 6, 1994 - May 2, 1995.
Native American Beadwork, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, February 1, 1998 - May 24, 1998.
ProvenanceJames Waste, California; Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco, California; Morning Star Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
BibliographyButterfield & Butterfield. March 18, 1988, lot 4270.
Herbst, Toby, and Joel Kopp. The Flag in American Indian Art. Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1993, pp. 88-89, pl. 84.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.140.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 167.
Culture
Lakota (Teton Sioux)
Gauntlets
Date1900-1925
DimensionsOverall: 2 × 6 3/4 × 12 1/4 in. (5.1 × 17.1 × 31.1 cm)
Object numberT0359a-b
Credit LineGift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw
Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC
Label TextAmerican Indian items decorated with the American flag represent the influences of both American Indian and European-American traditions. Native artists also decorated commercially made items such as leather cavalry gauntlets. Gauntlets were popular among Plains and Plateau Indian men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as symbols of their roles as warriors.
The crossed flags on the gauntlets are part of the insignia of the United States Army Signal Corps, one of the first branches of the Army on the Plains. The swastika design, another representation of the four-directional cross, is a traditional American Indian symbol of friendship or prosperity. Despite its present day connotation, the design predates Hitler's Nazism by many centuries.Exhibition HistoryMuseum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, MA, December 6, 1994 - May 2, 1995.
Native American Beadwork, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, February 1, 1998 - May 24, 1998.
ProvenanceJames Waste, California; Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco, California; Morning Star Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
BibliographyButterfield & Butterfield. March 18, 1988, lot 4270.
Herbst, Toby, and Joel Kopp. The Flag in American Indian Art. Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1993, pp. 88-89, pl. 84.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.140.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 167.
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