F. M. Stern, California
Circa 1900 to 1930
Leather with metal conchos and studs
Height 40 inches (101.6 cm), waist 38 inches (96.5 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Durango, Colorado
The legs are cut wide in russet leather and hung from a dark leather yoke that scallops across the hips, the yoke edged with a close run of domed studs that continues down the full outer edge of each leg. Applied to the fronts are the four card suits, a club and a heart on one leg and a spade and a heart on the other, each cut from darker leather and outlined in studs, with rectangular tabs below them worked in the same way. The legs close along the outside with leather billets pulled through stamped conchos, five to a side, so the whole outer seam opens flat.
Batwing chaps were cut this way so the leg could swing free in the saddle and the chaps could be put on and taken off without removing boots or spurs, which made them the working pattern across the cattle country by the turn of the century. Decoration of this kind, card suits and studwork laid across a plain working ground, belongs to the rodeo and Wild West show taste of the same decades, when a rider's gear was seen by a crowd as well as by cattle. California saddleries supplied both trades, and the maker's name here places these in that tradition.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
F. M. Stern, California
Circa 1900 to 1930
Leather with metal conchos and studs
Height 40 inches (101.6 cm), waist 38 inches (96.5 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Durango, Colorado
The legs are cut wide in russet leather and hung from a dark leather yoke that scallops across the hips, the yoke edged with a close run of domed studs that continues down the full outer edge of each leg. Applied to the fronts are the four card suits, a club and a heart on one leg and a spade and a heart on the other, each cut from darker leather and outlined in studs, with rectangular tabs below them worked in the same way. The legs close along the outside with leather billets pulled through stamped conchos, five to a side, so the whole outer seam opens flat.
Batwing chaps were cut this way so the leg could swing free in the saddle and the chaps could be put on and taken off without removing boots or spurs, which made them the working pattern across the cattle country by the turn of the century. Decoration of this kind, card suits and studwork laid across a plain working ground, belongs to the rodeo and Wild West show taste of the same decades, when a rider's gear was seen by a crowd as well as by cattle. California saddleries supplied both trades, and the maker's name here places these in that tradition.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
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