Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Shield with Buffalo Bull and Thunderbird
Not on view
The highly abstract, visionary imagery on this large, early shield portrays a yellow-bodied Thunderbird, guardian of war. Ten scalps, represented by wide wavy lines on the right, together with the buffalo bull on the bottom, manifest the shield’s sacred power and protection against the enemy. When a Crow man named Spotted Tail sold this shield to collector Stephen G. Simms in 1902, he told him it had been passed down over five generations.
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