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1941.8.043

Flat cloth bag with beadwork decoration.

1941.8.043

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Flat cloth bag with beadwork decoration.
Long description
Flat purse or bag with simple opening across the top edge and loop handle. No flap or fastening. The ground fabric is of black velvet onto which decorative floral and foliate beaded patterns have been stitched on both faces of the bag. Padded edging trim of red cotton fabric, dark blue cotton trim at the top edge and brown cotton (?tape) for a handle. [JN]
Cultural groups
Haudenosaunee
Date / Period
Date made: 1860-1880
Date collected
By 1941
Acquisition information
Loaned: 1941 Bequeathed: 1964
Materials and processes
Material Velvet Textile, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Bead, Material Glass, Process Beadwork, Process Stitched, Process Woven
Dimensions
Width: max 120 mm, Length: max 200 mm including strap
Object numbers
Accession number: 1941.8.043
Research and responses

Subsequent information from J.M. Heilman, III, Curator of Anthropology, Dayton Museum of Natural History, 2600 DeWeese Pkwy, Dayton, Ohio 45414 based on a visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum in November 1998:'...you have a beaded bag listed as being European that would appear to me to be of Iroquois manufacture from Western New York State or just north of there in Ontario Canada.' [JN]

Confirmed as Iroquois by Laura Peers, November 1998. [JN]

Related Documents File - Copy of 'Beautifully Beaded; Northeastern Native American Beadwork' by Gretchen Fearon Faulkner, Nancy T. Prince and Jennifer Sapiel Neptune. In American Indian Art Winter 1998.

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 described this as a 'chatelaine' style bag and noted that the colour of the beads, the black velvet, the use of trims and the round elements all suggest this was made between 1860 and 1880. The base material of the bag is either black cotton velveteen, cotton or linen. The binding is blue, burgundy and brown cotton or linen twill tape. The lining is coarse brown linen. The design is sewn on top of a cardboard pattern and includes stylised floral images with lots of circular and bud forms. The looped bead fringe is very typical of Haudenosaunee. [see information about Project in researchers file GRASAC]. [ZM 11/12/2007] [L Peers 16/01/2008]

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