Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Boy's shirt
Apsáalooke/Crow, Native American
Not on view
Among nineteenth-century Northern Plains communities, abstract animals and landscape interpretations on children’s clothing signified connection, protection, or status. On this boy’s shirt, mirroring designs are beaded with extended rows using an overlay, or spot-stitch, and centered by vivid color-block diamonds with contrasting outlines surrounded by brilliant blue—a composition and palette characteristic of Apsáalooke women’s beadwork. Bright bands across the arms were beaded in flat sections onto leather, then custom-stitched together according to the child’s size.
