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PROPERTY FROM THE ZIELINSKI COLLECTION
A PLAINS PAINTED PICTORIAL BUFFALO HIDE ROBE
Details
A PLAINS PAINTED PICTORIAL BUFFALO HIDE ROBE
of usual form, painted in green, red, black, and yellow, depicting 21 horses, randomly arranged, most mounted by warriors, wearing bonnets and carrying lances and shields
Length: 93 in. (2.36 m.)
of usual form, painted in green, red, black, and yellow, depicting 21 horses, randomly arranged, most mounted by warriors, wearing bonnets and carrying lances and shields
Length: 93 in. (2.36 m.)
Literature
Illustrated in Waldlandindianer und Bisonjager Noramerikas, plate 16.
Exhibited
Amerika Haus Berlin, Jan. 26 - Mar. 1, 1967
Further details
In the assessment of a painted buffalo robe, it is essential to consider the pallet -- the hide itself. This Zielinski robe exhibits the majority of characteristics of a classic Plains Indian robe. Judging from its dimensions, along with the Indian preference for taking bison cows in the hunt, this robe was most likely taken from a younger female of the species. The cuts made to remove the hide were done in such a way for the robe to be essentially rectangular in shape, and with hide from the upper portion of the legs extending at each corner. The hide between the horns was removed, leaving two extensions of hide at the head of the robe. A short seam joined the margins where excess hide from the hump area was excised. The initial steps in tanning entailed stretching the hide by passing wooden stakes through small slits cut around the perimeter, and driving them into the ground. As is typical, many of the stake loops remain intact -- perhaps intended as a form of decoration. The tanner utilized a straight-handled hand tool with a serrated blade to flesh the hide, and a different adze-shaped implement to shave down the thick areas of the hump and shoulders in order to reduce the robe to uniform thinness, and make it lighter in weight.
Considering the innumerable buffalo robes that Plains Indians produced and decorated through the centuries, great diversity in artistic conventions developed -- yet a body of characteristics exists. No singular style depicts figures and the many details overall -- whether human, bovine, or equine. There is diversity within the genre of early Plains Indian painting styles. The variously colored horses arranged across the surface of this robe are rendered in a general style that began to wane toward the later mid-nineteenth century. The horses are elongated, the flanks flattened and sloped, and the legs tapering to a narrow line. This latter feature is also characteristic of human figures (see Ewers, 1957:pls. 2,3,7). In addition, the horse's hooves are stylized, each represented as a hook-like motif depicting the bottom of the hoof. By extension, and as a convention, hoof tracks drawn in a trailing series as on this Zielinski robe represent action typical in Plains Indian combat drawings.
A comparison of the figures portrayed on this robe reveals a number of other similarities in the depiction of details, such as horses' heads, manes and tails, arch of the necks, and the unique manner of representing pinto coloration with triangular and/or irregular subdivision of the body. A number of buffalo robes bearing horses with similar markings exist in the collections of the Linden Museum (Stuggart), the Deutsches Ledermuseum (Frankfurt am Main), and the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunder (Berlin). In fact, Prince Maximillian in particular collected one such robe now housed in the latter Institution.
The figures on this Zielinski robe are painted in the traditional manner, using powdered pigments mixed with a binder -- the black outlines completed first, and the interior filled in with various colors subsequently. The expected use-wear is evident on most of the figures, the paint being somewhat abraded on the ridges of the wrinkles in the hide. One horse (green) may have been overpainted. The hand of a primary artist is evident in the uniformity of the majority of the horses. However, the warrior figures appear to have been added by a different hand at some point. An archaic manner of indicating a man's shoulders sloping downward toward the neck is evident in some of the warrior riders (see Ewers, 1957:pl. 2), as is the convention of drawing the trunk of the rider's body merely perched atop his mount's back, and his legs extending only below its belly. One warrior wearing a horned hat with clipped (raven or crow) feathers drawn in black outline is an exceptionally finely drawn element. However fundamentally naive, rudimentary figures are not uncommon to buffalo robes, (see Ewers, 1957: pls. 6,7).
Benson L. Lanford
November 26, 2004
Considering the innumerable buffalo robes that Plains Indians produced and decorated through the centuries, great diversity in artistic conventions developed -- yet a body of characteristics exists. No singular style depicts figures and the many details overall -- whether human, bovine, or equine. There is diversity within the genre of early Plains Indian painting styles. The variously colored horses arranged across the surface of this robe are rendered in a general style that began to wane toward the later mid-nineteenth century. The horses are elongated, the flanks flattened and sloped, and the legs tapering to a narrow line. This latter feature is also characteristic of human figures (see Ewers, 1957:pls. 2,3,7). In addition, the horse's hooves are stylized, each represented as a hook-like motif depicting the bottom of the hoof. By extension, and as a convention, hoof tracks drawn in a trailing series as on this Zielinski robe represent action typical in Plains Indian combat drawings.
A comparison of the figures portrayed on this robe reveals a number of other similarities in the depiction of details, such as horses' heads, manes and tails, arch of the necks, and the unique manner of representing pinto coloration with triangular and/or irregular subdivision of the body. A number of buffalo robes bearing horses with similar markings exist in the collections of the Linden Museum (Stuggart), the Deutsches Ledermuseum (Frankfurt am Main), and the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunder (Berlin). In fact, Prince Maximillian in particular collected one such robe now housed in the latter Institution.
The figures on this Zielinski robe are painted in the traditional manner, using powdered pigments mixed with a binder -- the black outlines completed first, and the interior filled in with various colors subsequently. The expected use-wear is evident on most of the figures, the paint being somewhat abraded on the ridges of the wrinkles in the hide. One horse (green) may have been overpainted. The hand of a primary artist is evident in the uniformity of the majority of the horses. However, the warrior figures appear to have been added by a different hand at some point. An archaic manner of indicating a man's shoulders sloping downward toward the neck is evident in some of the warrior riders (see Ewers, 1957:pl. 2), as is the convention of drawing the trunk of the rider's body merely perched atop his mount's back, and his legs extending only below its belly. One warrior wearing a horned hat with clipped (raven or crow) feathers drawn in black outline is an exceptionally finely drawn element. However fundamentally naive, rudimentary figures are not uncommon to buffalo robes, (see Ewers, 1957: pls. 6,7).
Benson L. Lanford
November 26, 2004