What do these faces from the McKenney historical portfolio reveal? We see Native American Chiefs circa 1838 pictured in two wonderful lithographs. JF owns these two portraits of distinguished Native Americans, and he wants to know more about the portraits. Were they painted “on site” in a tribal village? In a studio? Interestingly, the artist is notable, but the commissioner of the works is the historical personage that makes these lithographs both remarkable and controversial.
The first portrait depicts Ahyouwaights, Chief of the Six Nations in 1838, Octavo (a certain size), Plate Seventy, from the portfolio The History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published by Thomas McKinney. Second, also from this portfolio, we see the portrait of Chittee Toholo, a Seminole chief, whose image was published by Greenough, plate sixty-seven.
A Disclaimer
The original works reflect the context and culture of their creation, as oils on canvas for a certain patron, Thomas Loraine McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the War Department of the US Government in the years 1824-1830. McKenney was a Maryland Quaker with an important post in Washington DC. The oils were painted in that city in the second quarter of the 19th century.
US government officials called Native American chiefs to meet with them. McKenney requested that Native American elders and chiefs “sit” for portraits for the artist Charles Bird King. His collection began in Georgetown in 1821. In ten years Bird King produced over a hundred portraits for McKenney. The artist enlisted his talented apprentice George Cook to paint selected portraits. I find the diversity in this collection of many tribal elders in portraiture remarkable. The Chiefs portrayed were leaders of large Nations, the Sauk, Fox, Shawnee, Osage, Chippawa, Choctaw, Sioux, Cherokee, Delaware, Seminole, and Blackfeet Nation, to name a few.
Each sitter wore their own distinct dress. As visitors to Washington DC, perhaps they chose to wear elements of early 19th century US jackets and military garb.
McKenney’s Goal
He wanted to form a government collection of portraits of tribal leaders that visited the Capitol. He didn’t offer the collection of portraits to the War Department during their creation, he retained them. Andrew Jackson dismissed McKenney from his post at the War Department in 1830. He gathered up his portraits and moved to Philadelphia with hopes that he might find a publisher and a printer. Moreover he needed a backer for his plan to develop a historical portfolio of images and text.
He found such a person in Edward C Biddle, a printer, a publisher, and a backer. Printers who also published was rare in those days. Biddle was responsible for the first six hand colored lithographs reproduced from oils on canvas printed in Volume One; the beginning of the portfolio The History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published over a series of years from 1836-1844.
The subsequent volumes were printed up till the 120th portrait, and offered to the public for subscription sale.
McKenney and Biddle hired the notable judge and writer James Hall, who wrote the accompanying text. McKinney hosted the chiefs as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and guided Hall’s words.
Value Considerations
Biddle, the printer and publisher who began the series in 1836, dropped out of the project. Greenough assumed the publishing. Two other publishers, Bowen, then Rice and Clark, succeeded him. Printer-publishers are important to the value of the works. The art market believes the lithographs by Greenough to be the finest.
As well as the importance of the printer, the size of the lithograph is also of importance to value. The Smithsonian owns the folio edition of 120 lithographs in twenty volumes. The “next size down” in book and portfolio printing is the quarto size. My client has the smallest size of two of the lithographs from the series in the octavo size, one eighth of a LARGE page.
Early in the 19th century, although it’s unknown WHEN, the Smithsonian acquired a full set of the twenty folios of 120 portraits, as well as the lion’s share of Charles Bird King’s oil portraits. The assesion catalogue for the National Museum of the American Indian does not state who donated the works. Twenty years after the last folio was printed in Philadelphia, the Smithsonian Castle in Washington DC caught fire, and the King canvases were lost along with so many other treasures.
The Seminole Chief’s portrait in this lithograph is valued at $2,500 and the Six Nations Chief’s portrait at $700.