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Blackfoot Quilled & Beaded Tobacco Bag 19th-20th

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:250.00 USD Estimated At:750.00 - 1,500.00 USD
Blackfoot Quilled & Beaded Tobacco Bag 19th-20th
The lot features a tobacco pouch hide bag with early quillwork and beadwork from the Blackfoot Native American Indians of the Northern Plains, dating to the turn of the century, late 19th or early 20th. The piece shows a Rocky Mountain Elk Indian tanned thick hide with rich red ocher/ochre mineral pigment dyed coloring trade thread sewn with early period correct pony beads in a geometric pattern, showing colors of greasy blue, chalk white, and red white heart. The base of the bag shows Elk hide long fringe with a red ocher coloring sewn/wrapped in porcupine quillwork (quilled), showing a natural cream and red dyed coloring. Just below the quillwork, the bag has a section of Russian 1800’s wound glass trade beads. The bag has an Indian tanned hide draw string tied at the bag opening and the piece shows a slightly stiffening hide with supple fringe. The beads are all 19th Century French pony trade beads, some of the earliest examples first traded by French explorers to the Indians in the 1700’s. The bag presents well and is in well-preserved museum condition with little to no bead loss and some slight quill loss. Provenance: From a private museum collection in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of France. The bag measures overall 17.5” L by 6.25” W.