- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Picture frame of birch bark with floral embroidery in moose-hair, including a figure in the 'bristle' technique. [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 16/2/2006]
- Long description
- Picture frame of birch bark with floral embroidery in moose-hair, including a figure in the 'bristle' technique. The frame is also decorated with quillwork. [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 16/2/2006]
- Cultural groups
- Huron-Wendat
- Date / Period
- Date made: 1850-1890
- Date collected
- By 1954
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1954
- Materials and processes
- Material Birch Bark Wood Plant, Material Moose Hair Animal, Material Pigment, Process Embroidered, Process Stitched, Process Dyed, Process Quillwork
- Dimensions
- Width: max 84 mm, Height: max 122 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1954.9.69
- Research and responses
Originally entered on database as Huron. [CW 11 6 99] Wendat and Huron are terms that refer to the same group, Wendat is what the group actually call themselves, Huron is what other people have called this group, information supplied in December 2007 by GRASAC team (see below). [ZM 19/12/2007]
Examined by the GRASAC research team on 10 December 2007 as part of a research project to create a digital database. This will incorporate information about collections of indigenous material culture from the Great Lakes region of North America that are housed in a number of museums on several continents; see https://icslac.carleton.ca/grasac/ The group agreed this was Wendat for the tourist trade, Ruth Phillips identified the date of manufacture as between 1870 to 1890 because of the quality of the workmanship, which is poorer than for example 1884.92.16. In the latter the stitching is high quality and thought to be made at the earlier date of c.1820 to 1835. The reason for the change in quality is that by the later date there was a demand for tourist souvenirs had increased and moved towards mass production rather than a smaller specialised high quality market. For further information on this see Ruth Phillips publication 'Trading Identities: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700-1900' (1998:University of Washington Press). [for information on Project see researchers file GRASAC]. [ZM 19/12/2007] [L Peers 14/01/2008]
Final GRASAC entry: 'Materials: birch bark, moose hair dyed red, green, and natural. Format/Techniques: The frame is in a shield shape. One of the floral motifs is done in the 'bristle' technique. [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 16/2/2006]. this is of interest because of its date. The 'bristle' technique is supposed to have been invented in the Northwest in the 1920s. See Turner, "Hair Embroidery in Siberia and N. America." Occasional Papers on Technology Pitt Rivers Museum. No. 7. Motifs are more cursory, not as finely done as earlier works. As the century came to an end, there was more mass production. The customers for the embroidery were changing to tourist buyers who had less demand for virtuosity, whereas earlier elite women consumers compared the commodity works to their own high quality work (RP). The colors of the purple and yellow flowers indicate the use of aniline dyes, which were available from 1860. Other Notes: Written on the back of the frame is: QUEBEC, LORETTE HURON INDIANS' [L Peers, 29/04/2009]
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in black and white as Plate IX, A. in Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America by Geoffrey Turner (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Occasional Paper on Technology, 7). The illustration is captioned (page 77) as follows: 'True embroidery on birchbark. ... 4. Picture frame, length 12 cm. c. 1850; bristle figure at apex. PRM: 1954.9.69.' [MJD 19/08/2011]
Search terms: Picture and Graphic Art, Textile, Embroidery