Coat, ca. 1789. Unknown maker (Ojibwa, Ontario, Canada). Native tanned leather, rawhide, native pigment, natural and dyed porcupine quills, glass beads, and dyed animal hair. Gift of Ned Jalbert in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and funds from the exchange of William Rockhill Nelson Trust properties.
This rare buffalo skin coat reflects a complex blending of Woodlands and Plains Indian artistic traditions—Northwestern Ojibwa, Manitoba Cree, Northeastern Plains and Metis—as well as European fashion. It also embodies the dynamic cultural exchange that characterized the beaver trade during the North American Colonial period. Patterned after an English officer’s coat of the period of George III, garments of this type signified rank, wealth and prestige. This one is richly ornamented with loom-woven, embroidered and wrapped porcupine quillwork in geometric designs, and elaborately painted with abstract, geometric imagery. Like all others with recorded histories, it was presented to a prominent White official or visitor, reportedly in 1789, and probably represented a complex social exchange rather than a simple gift or collector’s acquisition.
