Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Pipe Bowl and Stem
Probably Oglala Lakota (Teton Sioux)
Not on view
Four animals revered for their sacred power—the turtle, mountain sheep, buffalo, and elk—are carved in exceptionally high relief on this pipe stem. Their reductive, abstract forms give the animals an iconic presence and indicate the sure hand of an unnamed master carver. The finely proportioned, T-shaped pipe bowl is typically found on Plains pipes from the later half of the 1800s. Artists made pipes for use within the community as well as for trade or sale to an outside market.
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