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Parfleche Box

ca.1889
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Typical Lakota motifs with bold outlined elements are featured on two sides of this parfleche box. The opposite sides display nontraditional checkered designs—perhaps reflecting a pieced quilt or patterned fabric of the period. Rawhide boxes like this one represent the final evolution of parfleche painting. Produced almost exclusively by Lakota women, the boxes became a functional form at the end of the nineteenth century, in the early reservation period, and were useful in horse-drawn wagons. They likely imitated commercial Euro-American containers.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Parfleche Box
  • Date: ca.1889
  • Geography: United States, North or South Dakota
  • Culture: Lakota (Teton Sioux)
  • Medium: Rawhide, pigment, cotton cloth
  • Dimensions: Height: 18 5/8 in. (47.3 cm)
    Width: 11 1/4 × 14 1/2 in. (28.6 × 36.8 cm)
  • Classification: Hide-Containers
  • Credit Line: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Katie Meredith (2010.25)
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing