Pewter Belt Buckle - End of the Trail
This nicely detailed End of the Trail cut out belt buckle is a must have for any Native American collector or End of the Trail fan. Made of pewter with a blue enameled background really makes this belt buckle stand out.
End of the Trail is a well-known sculpture that was created by American artist James Earle Fraser who first came up with the idea for the sculpture in the 1880's through his life experiences as a boy growing up in Mitchell, South Dakota. While studying arts at the age 13 after his family moved to Chicago he helped install sculptures for the 1893 World's Fair. Doing this task is what is said to have inspired him to create his sculpture, which started out as a small bronze sculpture. In 1898 James got the opportunity to travel overseas to Paris and study art there, he was really taken by the works if Michelangelo. His trip to Paris is what inspired him to make his sculptures on a Grand scale and to add the same emotion to them as Michelangelo had done with his own. Returning to the USA and working with Saint-Gaudens got James the recognition and commissions he needed to be taken as an artist. The End of the Trail was created exclusively for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. The sculpture was placed in the Court of Palms at the entrance of the Expo was seen by numerous visitors which got it wide spread fame.
The sculpture was rescued by residents of Tulare County, Ca in 1919 when it was a time that statues could not be cast in bronze do to the lack of materials that make bronze because of World War 1 so many plaster statutes where pitched in to a mud pit in Marina Park. The sculpture upon its rescue was relocated to Mooney Grove Park near Visalia, CA. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum acquired the sculpture in 1968 and had the plaster sculpture cast in bronze and then returned it to Mooney Grove Park where it still resides today in its full glory of a masterful bronze sculpture just the way James intended it to be.