Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Courting Fan
Not on view
A bull elk and his band of cows are incised on one side of this wood fan. Around the rim of the reverse, thirty-four abstract human figures join hands, and sixteen long, pointed forms radiate from the center. Perhaps these elongated shapes represent reflected rays of light, a reference to the all-powerful Sun. Members of the Elk Dreamer’s Society regarded the elk as a symbol of male power, and one of the members likely carried this unusual fan in dances.
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