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1838-Dated Hand-Colored McKinney and Hall Print of Kee-Shes-Waa, A Fox Chief

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:375.00 USD Estimated At:600.00 - 800.00 USD
1838-Dated Hand-Colored McKinney and Hall Print of Kee-Shes-Waa, A Fox Chief
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Prints
1836 “Kee-Shes-Waa, A Fox Chief” by McKinney and Hall
1838-Dated, Hand-Colored Thomas McKinney (1785-1859) and James Hall (1793-1868), Lithograph Print: “Kee-Shes-Waa, A Fox Chief,” shown wearing his large Silver Breastplate Decoration, published by “F.W. Greenough, Philad,” Choice Extremely Fine.
This handsome Hand-colored Lithograph original Print measures about 12.5” x 18” (by sight), matted and framed to an overall size of 19.75” x 25.75”. Paper with even slight tone with good color, displayed under Plexiglas It is a wonderful example of McKinney and Hall’s “Indian Tribes of North America,” a congressionally authorized effort to catalog the rapidly dwindling native populations before they completely disappeared. A similar example (not framed) is found available online for sale at $1,400. Our example is ready to hang on display.
When a large delegation of Indians came to see President Monroe in 1821, McKenney commissioned the fashionable portraitist Charles Bird King to paint the principal delegates, dressed in costumes of their choice. Many of the most prominent Indian leaders of the nineteenth century were among King’s sitters, including Sequoyah, Red Jacket, Major Ridge, Cornplanter, and Osceola.

The portraits hung in the War Department until l858, when they were moved to the Smithsonian Institute. The portfolio nearly bankrupted McKenney as well as the two printing firms who invested in its publication. But their work proved to be a much more valuable contribution than they imagined.

Catlin’s paintings of Indians were destroyed in a warehouse fire; and James Otto Lewis’ watercolors burned along with those by King in the Smithsonian fire of l865. The McKenney and Hall portraits remain the most complete and colorful record of the native leaders who made the long journey to Washington to speak for their people.