Plains Painted Pictorial Buffalo Hide Robe

probably depicting a war record, showing numerous galloping equestrian figures, some wearing fully feathered headresses, other holding coup sticks or shields with feathered coronas; red, yellow, black, blue and green pigment.

Collected by Lieutenant G.G. Greenough, 4th U.S. Artillery
New York Collection
Sold Sotheby's New York, October 1984, lot 316, cover illustration
Private English Collection
Sold Christie's New York, May 1999, lot 117
Acquired from Morning Star Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Wear is consistent with age including abrasions and fading, a series of small perforations along the periphery (presumably for hanging), some torn. Overall, condition is good.
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For a discussion of painted robes see Conn, p. 139: "Before the critical confrontation between native and American military forces began on the plains, intertribal warfare had been a vehicle by which men established and improved their status within the tribe...To preserve a public record of these exploits, Plains men painted representational scenes on leather robes, tipi covers, and tipi linings...Its elements included episodic, non-chronological narrative content, precision in recording details of war equipment, and a stylization characterized by the flat two dimensional treatment of each figure. Horses usually appear at a flying gallop, with all four legs extended."