19th Plains Sioux Ceremonial Pipe Tomahawk Museum Quality Sotheby's For Sale

19th Plains Sioux Ceremonial Pipe Tomahawk

composed of a wood haft of oval and pointed oval section, with firebranded stipple marks on both sides of the mouthpiece, tightly wrapped with brass wire, and surmounted by a steel head with tall cylindrical bowl decorated with shallow grooves at the base and rim, incised crosshatching on the ears, and flaring blade pierced with three circles and a heart, a wood plug inserted on the fore end, the perforated hand grip strung with a fringed triangular hide drop, backed with yellow ochre-dyed cloth, and ornamented with a column of crosses in purple-dyed porcupine quillwork against a red quilled ground, a quilled "butterfly" on the openwork section below; traces of red pigment.

Provenance: a Missouri Private Collection; Sotheby's, New York, December 4, 1993, lot 134, sold for $6,325.; Private Nashville Collection

mounted in acrylic shadow box