shield

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Object Type: shield
Museum number: Am.5202.a
Description: Shield made of leather.
Production ethnic group: Made by: Pawnee; Made by: Plains Peoples; Made by: Cree; Made by: Northeast Peoples
Production date: 1823 (before)
Excavator/field collector: Field Collection by: Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg
Findspot: Found/Acquired: North America
Materials: leather
Dimensions: Diameter: 58 centimetres
Curator's comments: This object featured in an episode of the BBC children's television programme "Scan", filmed in November 1976.
Bibliographic references: Carocci 2012 / Warriors of the Plains: The Arts of Plains Indian Warfare (p.65); Green 1999 / The British Museum Encyclopaedia of Native North America (p.172); King 1999 / First Peoples, First Contacts: Native Peoples of North America (p.264); Klann 1999 / Die Sammlung indianischer Ethnographica aus Nordamerika des Herzog Friedrich Paul Wilhelm von Württemberg (no. 123, p. 53); Gibbs 1982 / Duke Paul Wilhelm Collection in the British Museum (no. 4, pp. 54-58); Bancroft-Hunt & Forman 1981 / The Indians of the Great Plains (p.90); Dalton & Joyce 1910 / Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections (Fig. 254)
Location: On display (G26/dc14)
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 1999 25 Jun-Present, BM Room 26; Gallery of North America, Case: "The American West"
Condition: Good
Acquisition name: Donated by: Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks
Previous owner: Previous owner/ex-collection: J F G Umlauff
Acquisition date: 1869
Acquisition notes: This shield and cover set was purchased by A. W. Franks from the Hamburg dealer J. F. G. Umlauff on 11th December 1868. Umlauff had acquired it from the collection of Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, a German collector. Württemberg had purchsed the shield from a Pawnee chief named Schake-Ru-Le-Shar in September 1823 (see Gibbs 1982 for more details).
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Am.5202.a
Additional IDs: CDMS number: Am1869C1.5202 (old CDMS no.); Miscellaneous number: Am1869C0101.69

Free entry

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