Russell created the original painted plaster model of the head of a Piegan Blackfoot woman in 1902. At the time, he was experimenting with gelatin and rubber molds that would allow him to make multiple copies of a plaster figure, which he would then paint in various colors and give to friends, especially during the holidays. Many years later, in the last few months of his life, Russell modified one of these plaster models for casting in bronze. He seems to have done this at the suggestion of his wife, Nancy, who wanted him to create more subjects in bronze for long-term income. The first cast seems to have been made in October 1926, the month Russell died, and it is unlikely he ever saw the finished cast in bronze. The strong, regal quality of the young Blackfoot woman’s face is typical of the way in which Russell wished to portray her—heroic and ruggedly beautiful. She wears her hair in the traditional manner of Blackfoot girls and matrons, parted in the middle to form two braids. Clark Wissler, who studied Blackfoot material culture, observed: “In careful dress, the hair is smoothed down closely over the sides of the head and temples concealing the ears, though generally exposing more of the forehead than is the case among the Dakota and some of the neighboring tribes.” The braids of Russell’s subject lie behind large shell earrings hung with decorative rows of shell, bone, or wood in typical Blackfoot fashion. The beaded edge of her bodice is barely visible under the folds of the cape that covers her shoulders. A large rosette with beaded decoration in the shape of a crosse formée is fastened at her chest, in a style that was, in fact, reserved for men rather than the women of the tribe.