A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historiae Literarum et Artium, 4. (Szeged, 2004)

Nagy Imre: A Preliminary Report on the Friedman Kein Canvas

The description did not provide any information on the provenience of the item but hypothesized that it depicts a single encounter between a Plains Indian tribe and its enemies. We shall see that this view is untenable. The experts at Sotheby Parke Bennet even refrained from identifying the tribe of origin. The item arrived at the action house from the collection of the New York costume designer, Mary McFadden. We have no information how the canvas reached her collection from the collection of Norman Feder. The painted canvas was bought by its present owner, Dr. Alvin E. Friedman Kein, New York. A good quality, full color photograph of the canvas was published in a volume dedicated to the connoisseurship of Princeton alumni and friends of the Art Museum, Princeton University (In Celebration 1997: 106-107). (I refer to that publication for illustrating the complete canvas, as my photographs made during the visit are not suitable for reproduction.) In the short caption accompanying the color photograph, the canvas is identified as a Cheyenne artwork, dated to ca. 1880. A short survey of the depicted shield designs, warriors' paraphernalia, and the style of painting confirms this identification. At least three of the shield designs can be identified positively as Cheyenne, and three or four of the contributing artists (or their works elsewhere) might be identified in different Cheyenne ledgers. Because a detailed description and analysis of each war scene would require a monograph, and not a short report like this, I have selected two related scenes, and shall in this way try to illustrate the research potential of the Friedman Kein Canvas. It has been stated several times that Plains Indian pictographic art represents an invaluable source for ethnological, historical and visual studies (Lessard 1992; Szabo 1994; Berlo 1996). Before a careful analysis of the two selected scenes it might be useful to describe each depicted war deed, and marking them for a more convenient identification. Each register will be marked by an R (meaning „row") and a number. Rl will refer to the uppermost row, while R4 to the lowermost. In each row, the scenes will be numbered from left to right, and marked with a letter С (meaning „coup"). For example, the marking for the second war deed of the third row is R3C2. Even after a brief survey it becomes evident that all horse figures were created by the same artist, except R1C3; R1C4; and R2C5. This major artist of horses produced small headed, long-necked animals, generally in the so-called „flying gallop" posture, in which both the front and hind legs of each horse are depicted very close to each other. The human figures were drawn by several artists. (01)R1C1 A mounted Cheyenne lances a female enemy in her own hut. The faded graphite pencil lines make it impossible to decide that whether it is a tipi or a brush-hut. The Cheyenne hero wears a hair-fringed, blue and yellow painted scalp shirt, breechcloth, but no leggings. He wears a single, upright eagle tail feather in his hair. He carries a shield with a horizontal bisection, where the upper half is light blue, and the lower half is red. A black bird with outstretched wings occupies the central position on the shield. Below the lance-point, his lance is adorned with the doughnut-shaped rawhide rattle of the Southern Cheyenne Héma 'tanóohese, or Bowstring Society. There is a scalp and a single eagle feather tied to the bridle of his horse, while the rump of the horse is marked with a # sign. The tail of the horse is tied up with a strip of red trade cloth, and a fan of eagle tail feathers is secured to the tail. 102