UNIDENTIFIED ATHABASKAN or NÊHIYAW (PLAINS CREE) ARTIST
ESTIMATE: $1,200 — $1,800
Further images
Commerce and trade between different Indigenous groups resulted in more than just goods travelling across borders. Everyday objects varied with geography and use cases, and travelled along with that commerce and trade. Material traditions did not have to conform to boundaries, either physical or cultural, and techniques, materials, and design vocabularies travelled through trade, kinship, and sustained contact between communities. We are presented with a bit of this history in the present lot, as designs could be borrowed and modified by using different materials, or even something as simple as a maker preferring one look to another. Brightly coloured floral beadwork graces the vamps of these moccasins, their design as a whole pointing towards a variety of influences.
AC
References: For a similar work, see National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Moccasins, Gwich’in (Kutchin), Yukon River, Alaska, cat. no. 16/1639.
Provenance
Sotheby’s, NY, 24 May 1994, Lot 400,Acquired from the above by a Private Collection, Montreal;
Estate of the above.
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