Skip to product information
WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
1/13
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
  • WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
WONDERFULLY FOLKY AMERICAN CARVED & PAINTED NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN WHIRLIGIG
$2,200.00 USD

Original-Style Polychrome Decoration & Revolving Paddle Arms
American, Late 19th Century, circa 1880–1900
Approx. 17” H
A wonderfully eccentric and enormously appealing piece of early American kinetic folk art, this hand-carved and painted whirligig depicts a Native American woman dressed in a long ochre-colored gown and fitted with a marvelous pair of oversized revolving arms—part costume, part windmill, and entirely folk art.
The figure has tremendous personality. Her boldly carved head is framed by a heavy mass of black-painted hair, while a long projecting nose, deeply recessed eyes, broad cheeks touched with red, pronounced chin, and wonderfully articulated red mouth and teeth give her an unforgettable expression. Rather than attempting academic realism, the unknown carver exaggerated nearly every feature, creating a face possessing the directness and individuality so prized in American folk sculpture.
Her costume is particularly fascinating. The long cream-to-ochre gown follows an exaggerated hourglass form, narrowing dramatically at the waist before widening through the skirt. Across the chest is an abstract arrangement of black and red geometric ornament suggestive of the breast ornaments and decorated clothing associated with Plains dress.
Even more striking is the decoration of the skirt. A large red hand is prominently painted across the upper portion, while below appears a wonderfully primitive black pictographic figure, shown in animated stride with one arm reaching toward a long staff-, weapon-, or lance-like device overhead. Together these motifs strongly evoke the pictographic vocabulary found in nineteenth-century Plains material culture, although no specific tribal attribution is suggested.
And then there are those arms.

Each is carved with an enormous cream-painted sleeve terminating in a small reddish-brown hand. Their exaggerated proportions weren’t simply the product of an imaginative carver—they make the figure work. The broad sleeves act as wind-catching paddles, and the two arms are joined through the shoulders so that they revolve a complete 360 degrees in unison.