Quirt handle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An artist preserved the natural curve of an elk’s antler for the basic shape of this quirt (riding whip) handle. He enhanced it with carvings of feathers, headdresses, and buffalo hooves, filling each with red or black pigment. The object exemplifies the beauty of many of the small tools produced on the Plains in the 1800s. The quirt originally had a wrist strap and a heavy lash.

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