western-2

A beautiful oil painting, 24" X 30" of an Indian Maiden relaxing in her tipi:

Raven Hair Woman

$6250.00

Framed in gold Victorian style frame, not shown.

Iron Eagle, a proud Warrior Original painting SOLD

Iron Eagle was also known as Two Eagle, a Sans Arc Sioux chief. Unfortunately there are no known photos of him, but he was noted for being very brave and a good leader. When I painted the face I used typical northern Sioux facial features in order to create his likeness. His forehead is painted with his sacred vermillion color with white spots representing hail that would rain down on his enemy during battle.

I based my painting on an incident that happened in 1871 where Sitting Bull and a large camp of 1,000 people received word from scouts that a war party of Flathead Indians, bitter enemies of the Sioux were camped in the area and were probably intending to make a raid on the Sioux encampment.

Sitting Bull lead a party of warriors and approached the Flathead camp. A small group of distinguished warriors and chiefs including Two Eagle rode into the enemy camp as decoys and became involved with a pitched battle, and led the Flathead warriors into a trap where Sitting Bull and the other warriors were waiting. During the battle Two Eagle had a close encounter with a brave Flathead warrior who was ultimately killed.

A typical Indian tradition was to honor an especially brave, fallen warrior, even if he was an enemy and to capture some of his strength and medicine, items were taken from fallen foe and used by the victor.

In my painting Iron Eagle is wearing a typical Sioux war bonnet with about 36 eagle feathers which represent 36 brave deeds, mostly gained by counting coup which means he touched an enemy warrior, this is considered a greater honor than to kill the enemy. The beaded brow band on the bonnet is copied from an original Sioux bonnet. Notice in the corner there is a tiny bell that these bonnet wearers loved to put on their headdress.

One particular photographed Sioux warrior was called "Stands and Looks Back" who has six of these bells on his bonnet's brow band. The shirt in my painting is a typical Flathead style war shirt with their unique beadwork pattern and colors applied. In his left hand he is holding is prized ceremonial pipe, in his right hand he is holding his sacred rawhide shield which has a cloth cover painted yellow, white and blue to which is attached is a red trade cloth banner with 8 small eagle feathers. Also mounted on this shield is a large brass sleigh bell and assorted feathers of hawk and owl. Underneath the captured war shirt, he is wearing a green trade cloth breech clout and dark blue wool leggings trimmed with a yellow ribbon.

36" X 24" $7500.00 SOLD

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