Chilkat Robe
Artist
Mary Ebbetts Hunt
(North American Indian, Tlingit, 1823 - 1919)
CultureTlingit, Southeast Alaska
Dateca. 1880-1900
MediumNatural and dyed mountain goat wool, commercial wool yarn, and yellow cedar bark
DimensionsOverall (excluding fringe): 34 × 60 inches (86.36 × 152.4 cm)
Credit LineFrom the Estelle and Morton Sosland Collection
Object number49.2008.16
On View
On viewGallery Location
Gallery Label- 206
This magnificent textile is of a type highly esteemed throughout the Northwest Coast and long associated with nobility. These robes, sometimes called dancing blankets, were created by women using extremely complex twining techniques that enabled them to produce the curvilinear shapes forming the composition. The designs, woven in mountain goat wool and shredded cedar bark, copied painted images on wooden pattern boards produced by men. Mary Hunt was recognized as a master weaver who created at least ten other robes related to this one, each of which was said to require more than a year to complete. This textile is distinguished by her singular use of color, clearly influenced by Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) artistic style, which incorporates a vivid green, red and pink in addition to the traditional white, black and yellow.
Torrence, Gaylord, ed. Continuum: North American Native Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
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