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The Red Stone Pipe

Currency:USD Category:Western Americana Start Price:NA Estimated At:80,000.00 - 120,000.00 USD
The Red Stone Pipe
The Red Stone Pipe
Artist: Sharp, Joseph H.Date of Birth: 1859-1953
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 16 x 20 1/4 inches
Signed: Signed lower left

Red pipestone is also called Catlinite, after the painter George Catlin, who was allowed to visit the sacred quarries (Pipestone National Monument now) in Southwestern Minnesota in 1835. Other quarries used by Native peoples are found in Ontario, Northern Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Utah. Pipestone is fine-grained and easily worked, making it an excellent carving material. Only registered Native American pipe makers are permitted to cut Catlinite in Pipestone National Monument, and they only cut stone with hand tools. Among the Eastern Woodlands, Western and Great Basin peoples, these quarries were neutral territory. Early Europeans misidentified these pipes as Òpeace pipes,Ó though pipes and pipe smoking has many other functions in Native culture. According to tradition, the red stone represents the earth, while the wooden stem stands for all the creatures that live on the earth. Smoke from the pipes carries prayers to the spirit world. These prayers may relate to war, health, weather, crops, or hunting. Though Catlinite pipes can be carved into animals, human figures, and an endless variety of shapes, and the stems may be adorned with feathers and beads (these ornate pipes are called calumets) the pipe in Joseph Henry SharpÕs elegiac painting, The Red Stone Pipe, is of simple design, one you might find among the Sioux, Blackfeet, Mandan, Sauk and others. With the war bonnet and drum set aside, the Indian sits at ease, his right hand holding the pipe, his right arm loose over his knee. He is contemplative, perhaps formulating a prayer or simply meditating on the mystery of the pipe smoke as it rises to heaven.