NEW YORK - An extremely rare Canadian Cree costume is coming home after a southern Ontario art dealer paid US$510,000 for the garment Friday at a Sotheby's auction.
Donald Ellis, who owns galleries in Dundas, Ont., near Hamilton, and in New York City (www.donaldellisgallery.com), says he plans to donate the garment, cut in the style of an 18th-century English frock coat, to a Canadian museum.
"It will be donated to a Canadian institution but I am not at liberty to discuss any of the details of that at the moment,'' Ellis, 49, said from his New York gallery.
"It's one of a handful that exists of this type and it's arguably the most important example extant of this type,'' he said. "It has all of its accoutrements, it's in remarkable condition and state of preservation and it has a collection history back to Canada in the early 19th century. So it's a pretty important piece of Canadian cultural history.''
Ellis and his gallery director, Mary Ann Bastien, are widely considered the foremost dealers in the field of antique native American art. Ellis has been a regularly featured appraiser of native American art on the PBS show "Antiques Roadshow'' and has also appeared on the BBC and CBC versions of the show.
The Cree costume had been priced at between US$250,000 to $350,000. It includes leggings and mittens and is believed to be one of only 14 known to exist in the world.
David Roche, Sotheby's specialist in American Indian art, called the costume a "fascinating fusion of culture.''
The coat is made of hide, probably elk skin, and is painted down the back and along the hemline with traditional designs and circular medallions that represent the sun.
Roche said Sotheby's received a lot of interest from private potential buyers from Canada and the U.S. before Friday's auction. The garment belonged to a collector from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Ellis said he's been aware of the existence of the costume since the early 1990s.
