Brass, Leather and Bone Choker of Plains Indian Style [SOLD]

Special Offer: The owner has authorized us to reduce the price of this choker from $495.00 to a new price of $275.00, a 45% price reduction.

Chokers of this style were very popular with men of the Plains tribes. They are fashioned from bone that has been drilled through and graduated from wider in the middle to narrower at the ends of each bone segment. Small brass balls cap off each end of each bone segment. Each section of brass and bones is separated by strips of leather. The string or sinew from each row is then grouped and woven into a single strand for use in tying the choker around one’s neck.

It is most likely that this choker style developed from the traditional hairpipe breastplate worn by Plains Indians. As a result of the association with a breastplate, one thinks of this as a man’s necklace but I recall seeing Florence Pierce wear this one and it looked striking around her neck, so it can be worn by either male or female. I do not know the age of this but it certainly is 20 or 30 years old or older.

Provenance: From the estate of Transcendental artist Florence Pierce of Albuquerque who passed away in 2007 at the age of 89. She was best known for luminescent paintings made of pigmented resins on reflective surfaces. Her interest in abstraction began in the 1930s when she was an associate of the Transcendental Painting Group. The New York Times called her “the doyenne of abstract art in the Southwest” following her art exhibit in New York City in 2006.