“Native American Chief”

A one-of-a-kind original sculpture by Cheryl Bollenbach.

17 inches  (20.5 inches with head-dress)                                                                                     

Native American Chief is dressed in clothing typical of the early to mid 1800’s. He wears a war bonnet of pigeon feathers that have been cut down (over 150 of them) and hand painted to resemble eagle feathers. There are 3 tiny steel bells sewn to the end of each side of the double tailed bonnet. He carries a hand-painted shield of stretched leather complete with a power medicine pouch, tinklers and a bone vertebrae. His staff is also decorated with feathers and ribbons. The chief’s hand painted leather tunic and leggings are cut from (miniaturized) patterns from museum archives. The tunic is decorated with hair locks (mohair) representative of people in his tribe that he is responsible for - these are NOT representative of enemy scalps! The clothing also has strips of hand-painted designs common to the Sioux nation during the early 1800’s representing strips of “quill-work”. He has a re-cycled fur skin across one shoulder. His breast plate is made of wooden “bones”, leather and beads. Antique beads adorn his neck. The moccasins are made of leather and are embellished with hand-painted “quill” strips. His head, hands and feet are sculpted of polymer clay that has been hand-painted with meticulous detail in fine acrylic paint. The fabric body has been needle sculpted over a wire armature. He has a mohair wig and a solid wood stand.