Materials

Beige wool, red smooth cotton, small glass beads; clear, red, blue, green, gray-yellow, orange, medium cylindrical beads; brown, white, green pink, blue, and yellow. Birch bark or brown paper. Sinew (and cotton) thread; stuffing material.

Techniques or Format

A Victorian boot shaped piece of beige wool with a red cotton backing. The front is decorated with slightly raised beadwork appliqued upon pattern papers, edged with beaded scallops, a double strand strap with seed beads and sinew thread or wire tread.

Motifs and Patterns

Floral raised beadwork in four motifs. The shaft of the boot has two floral motifs with three lanceolate shaped petals knotted together at the stems, the vamp of the boot has one floral motif with three lanceolate shaped petals, and one floral motif with elongated petals.

Additional Context

Floral motifs connected to cosmology, a way for the Iroquois Haudenosaunee people to preserve their world.

Original and Subsequent Uses

This type of Victorian whimsy (pincushion) was created for sale to tourists visiting the Eastern Great Lakes region.

Other Notes

This pincushion resembles the one found in The National Museum of the American Indian in New York and depicted in Ruth B. Phillips, Trading Identites: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700-1900 (1998): p. 229.

Dimensions: 0 × 0 × 0 mm

Condition: Good condition, minimal bead loss on the toe of the boot, no discoloration.

Reasons for connecting this relative with particular times, materials, styles and uses

This type of object, materials used and style of the beadwork resemble the existing work dated from the 1880’s-1910.

Current Location: Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA, USA

Catalogue, Accession or Reference Number: P5330

Link to Institution's Collections Database: luna.pomona.edu

GKS Reference Number: 1527