The Indian Princess

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This piece is one of five known versions of this design completed by young ladies at school in Boston. All feature the rather large upright shepherdess with her smaller shepherd suitor in a black hat to one side. The Museum’s shepherdess traditionally has been called the Indian Princess because of what appears to be a feathered headdress peeking out from behind her hair. In the eighteenth century an Indian princess was an understood symbol for the American colonies.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art