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Lot Essay
Cf. For a similar example of Sauk and Fox moccasins see Hodge et al., 1973, p. 38, no. 141.
"The closely nested, curvilinear designs with bold shapes, the active 'negative design' backgrounds, and the hot color combinations all executed with 'spot stitch,' seed bead embroidery became the hallmarks of an early Prairie style that emerged during the 1850s and 1860s among several tribes resident in newly established reservations, missions, and settlements in the territories just west of the Mississipi, particularly the Potawatomi, Winnebago, Sauk, and Mesquakie from the east and the Iowa, Oto, and later, the Osage. The densely packed design elements are inventive and abstract, often elaborating on the bilaterally symmetrical 'double curve' and the radial structures of ancestral embroidery traditions from the East, but now over extended with multiple volutes and vague floral or other pictorial references. As the style became increasingly formalized during the later nineteenth century, design elements spread out in more spacious arrangements, outlined with white like the earlier silk applique of the southern Great Lakes, most often against the dark broadcloth preferred for skirts, shirts, breechcloths, and wearing blankets. The Prairie style is a true synthesis and the first expansive intertribal style of the nineteenth century. It illustrates how innovation in dress and its decoration continually revitalized Indian identity in the face of enforced culture change (Penney, 1992, pp. 114-15)".
"The closely nested, curvilinear designs with bold shapes, the active 'negative design' backgrounds, and the hot color combinations all executed with 'spot stitch,' seed bead embroidery became the hallmarks of an early Prairie style that emerged during the 1850s and 1860s among several tribes resident in newly established reservations, missions, and settlements in the territories just west of the Mississipi, particularly the Potawatomi, Winnebago, Sauk, and Mesquakie from the east and the Iowa, Oto, and later, the Osage. The densely packed design elements are inventive and abstract, often elaborating on the bilaterally symmetrical 'double curve' and the radial structures of ancestral embroidery traditions from the East, but now over extended with multiple volutes and vague floral or other pictorial references. As the style became increasingly formalized during the later nineteenth century, design elements spread out in more spacious arrangements, outlined with white like the earlier silk applique of the southern Great Lakes, most often against the dark broadcloth preferred for skirts, shirts, breechcloths, and wearing blankets. The Prairie style is a true synthesis and the first expansive intertribal style of the nineteenth century. It illustrates how innovation in dress and its decoration continually revitalized Indian identity in the face of enforced culture change (Penney, 1992, pp. 114-15)".