[NATIVE AMERICAN] 1890s Crow Beaded Blanket Strip w/ Three Ermine Drops

A Crow (Apsáalooke) Beaded Hide Blanket Strip. Northern Plains, circa 1890s. 68 × 5½ inches.

An exceptionally handsome blanket strip, its elongated hide ground densely worked in pale blue glass beads and punctuated by three circular medallions. Four red hourglass devices occupy the intervening rectangular fields, their dark green outlines terminating in small triangular projections. Related designs cross the medallions, where bright green accents and curved, dark green elements introduce variations within the repeated composition. Pink borders, interrupted by short green bars, follow the strip’s perimeter and encircle each roundel.

Three ermine pendants descend from the centers of the medallions, their white fur and black-tipped tails providing a soft, mobile contrast to the closely ordered beadwork. The construction is particularly effective at the roundels, where concentric bead rows emphasize the circular form before meeting the straighter passages of the adjoining panels. The reverse exposes the warm brown hide backing.

Beaded strips formed an important component of Plains robe and blanket decoration. Applied to hide robes and subsequently to trade blankets, they preserved an established mode of ornament as the materials of dress changed. Crow examples dating to the preceding decades survive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of the American Indian, placing the example offered here within a well-documented nineteenth-century tradition.

Here, the breadth of the blue ground allows the red devices to register clearly across the full length, while the pink edging holds the composition together without competing with its principal motifs. Equally rewarding in its overall arrangement and the close detail of its execution, the strip offers a fine expression of Crow beadwork distinguished by assured color, generous proportions, and the elegant disposition of its three ermine drops.