Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Sun Dance Painting
Not on view
An unknown artist created this painting of the Sun Dance, the most sacred of all Plains Indian rituals. Here, within the traditional enclosure, twenty-one standing figures face a center pole. In an effort to achieve spiritual alignment with the forces of the natural and supernatural worlds, the men—dressed in war regalia—raise their right hands to the sky as they sing, dance, and pray. Spectators appear outside the Sun Dance lodge.
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