Beaded Shoulder Bag
Seminole Tribe of Florida
c. 1840
Beads, cloth
Overall: 26 9/16 × 16 13/16 × 1 3/16 in. (67.5 × 42.7 × 3 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Stephen A. Lister, Class of 1963
2021.56.2
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Personal Gear: Bag
Research Area
Native American
Not on view
Label
A Seminole woman made this intricate shoulder bag from European beads acquired through complex trade networks with white settler communities. Lacking a needle narrow enough to sew the individual beads onto the bag, she stitched around the pre-strung beads to create her intricate design. Likely worn by a close male relative, the time she dedicated to creating this bag demonstrates her care.
A Native American man wears a similar bag in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s version of Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware; however, he is far from the center and barely outlined in the lower right of Leutze’s study. After the American Revolution, the newly formed US Government refused to recognize the sovereignty of tribal nations, including the Florida Seminole. The US Army attempted, but ultimately failed, to forcibly remove the Florida Seminole from their unceded homelands.
Comparative illustration at bottom of label (detail of figure at far left, in the boat):
Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware (detail), 1851, oil on canvas, 149 x 255 in (378.5 x 647.7 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897.
From the 2022 exhibition Historical Imaginary, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
Film Studies 42.23, Travelers and Tourists, Heidi Denzel, Spring 2023
History 63.02, Reading Artifacts: The Material Culture of Science, Whitney Barlow Robles, Spring 2023
Exhibition History
Historical Imaginary, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 17, 2022-June 4, 2023.
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