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Dress

ca. 1870
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 746
Vertical lanes of beadwork, in place of the typical horizontal configuration, give this dress its distinctive character. The U-shaped motif at the lower center represents Turtle, a symbol of power relating to women’s health. Like most bead workers in the mid-nineteenth century, this maker favored tiny glass Venetian seed beads over the larger pony beads popular in earlier periods. Today, women wear elaborately beaded dresses reminiscent of this one for the Women’s Traditional Dance, one of several categories in powwow competitions.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dress
  • Date: ca. 1870
  • Geography: Possibly made in North Dakota, United States; Possibly made in South Dakota, United States
  • Culture: Lakota/ Teton Sioux, Native American
  • Medium: Tanned leather and glass beads
  • Dimensions: 35 × 48 in. (88.9 × 121.9 cm)
  • Credit Line: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art, Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 2019
  • Object Number: 2019.456.27
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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