April 17, 2024
Original 1872/4 Folio McKenney & Hall Hand-colored American Indian, a Fox Chief
Pricing & History
-
Sold for
Start Free Trial or Sign In to see what it's worth.
- Sold Date
- Source eBay
Thomas McKenney, the first U.S Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was responsible for bringing American Indian delegations to Washington in the early nineteenth century. He was an outspoken champion of Indian rights, and did his best to oppose their exploitation, but was in the end unsuccessful in slowing the destruction of their culture and loss of their land. His legacy is the series of portraits he had painted of the visiting chiefs and warriors, most in their native regalia, by the artist Charles Bird King. Unfortunately, in 1865, the original portraits, housed in the Smithsonian Institution, were lost in a fire. Fortunately, Thomas McKenney in partnership with James Hall, who wrote the text, produced a set of 120 folio size prints and three frontispieces of these images in three volumes titled “The Indian Tribes of North America”. Thus, these irreplacable images of individual Native Americans were preserved. McKenny’s publishing project failed financially, and it was taken over by a series of other publishers, over the years 1836-1882. The fascinating and very complicated publishing history of this landmark of American lithography was untangled by Chistopher Lane of the Philadelphia Print Shop in an article in Vol.27, Number 2, of “Imprint”, the Journal of the American Historical Print Collectors Society, readily available via
read more
Items in the Price Guide are obtained exclusively from licensors and partners solely for our members’ research needs.
If this item contains incorrect or inappropriate information please contact us here to flag it for review.
If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.
If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.
