Three Ledger Drawings of Yellowhorse [SOLD]

Ledger art evolved from Plains Indian hide painting. Among Plains tribes, women traditionally painted abstract, geometrical designs, whereas men painted representational designs. The men's designs were often heraldic devices or visions painted on shields, tipis, shirts, leggings, or robes. Before the Plains tribes were forced to live on reservations in the 1870s, men generally painted personal feats in battle or hunting. Plains ledger art depicted communally acknowledged events of valor and tribal importance in order to gain status for the individuals who participated in them, and their band and kin. Plains pictorial art emphasizes narrative action and eliminates unnecessary detail or backgrounds. Figures tended to be drawn in hard outlines and filled with solid fields of color.

These were all traditionally painted on animal hides – particularly buffalo hides. When buffalo became scarce after eradication programs encouraged by the US federal government, Plains artists began painting and drawing on paper, canvas, and muslin.  Ledger books and other paper came from traders, government agents, missionaries, and military officers. With these books came pencils, ink fountain pens, crayons, and watercolor paints. These new tools allowed for greater detail and experimentation than had the earlier tools, such as bone or wood styli dipped in mineral pigments. The compact ledger books and pencils were highly portable, making them ideal for nomadic lifestyles.

Ledger books have been disassembled and sheets from those books have been sold separately. That is the case with these sheets from a ledger book belonging to Cheyenne Indian Robert Ridge Walker (1860-1965). 

These three feature images of Yellowhorse.  The first, on the left, is Yellowhorse with a saddled horse.  The middle one is a couple seated next to a buckboard that is partially hidden by a Teepee.  The far right one is a Chief on horseback.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: From the estate of a Santa Fe resident who had purchased it from Morning Star Gallery

Recommended Reading: Colin G. Calloway, Editor, Ledger Narratives, The Plains Indian Drawings of the Lansburgh Collection at Dartmouth College, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (published in cooperation with the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire), 2012