Dress and belt with awl case
Plateau cultures thrived in the hilly steppe region between the Cascades in Washington and Oregon and the Rockies in Idaho and Montana. Garments of superior craftsmanship incorporating trade goods, such as this example, expressed personal identity and a family’s high status. The woman who made this two-hide dress lavishly covered the torso and sleeves with black-and-white beadwork, which she framed with fringes embellished with glass beads, cowry shells, bone, and two highly prized elk canines. The dress is accompanied by its own belt and awl case: awls were among the tools that women used in the preparation of animal skins.
Artwork Details
- Title: Dress and belt with awl case
- Date: ca. 1870
- Geography: Possibly made in Oregon, United States; Possibly made in Washington, United States
- Culture: Wasco, Native American
- Medium: Dress: tanned leather, glass beads, shell, bone, elk teeth, and brass thimbles
belt: commercial leather, glass beads, and metal studs
awl case: tanned leather, and glass beads - Dimensions: 52 × 46 in. (132.1 × 116.8 cm)
- Credit Line: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art, Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.456.1a, b
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Wasco, Native American
ca. 1860
Henry N. Hooper and Company
Boston & Sandwich Glass Company
ca. 1850
Frederick William MacMonnies
Thiébaut frères
1893–94, cast 1894
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
1884–87; reduced 1910; cast 1911
William F. Shaw
after 1852
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