Baby Girl's Inner Parka, 1903

Maria

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Chesterfield Inlet, Baby Girl's Inner Parka, 1903, fabric, felt, ivory, caribou skin, wool yarn, beads, sinew and thread, 21.25 x 13.5 in, 54 x 34 cm

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Provenance: an Ontario private collection; originally commissioned from the artist by a Mrs. Mina Starnes, wife of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police commanding officer at Fort Churchill, Inspector Cortlandt Starnes (later Commissioner of the RCMP) in 1903; returned to the artist many years later for repair; kept upon the death of the purchaser; then given by the artist to RCMP Cpl. E. Scholfield in 1935; by descent to current owners

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References: for contemporaneous full-size women's parka designs from the area, see a famous photograph titled Kenipitu Belles by A.P. Low, taken in 1903-04 at Cape Fullerton, just north of Chesterfield Inlet, depicting five Inuit women. It is published in Hessel, Inuit Art, fig. 139 and elsewhere. For a similar, slightly larger Caribou Inuit girl's parka collected in 1940 by Donald B. Marsh, see Judy Hall et al, Sanatujut: Pride in Women's Work (1994) fig. 74.