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1838 Wa-Baun-See A Pottawatomie Chief, Wearing his Silver US Indian Peace Medal

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:550.00 USD Estimated At:800.00 - 1,200.00 USD
1838 Wa-Baun-See A Pottawatomie Chief, Wearing his Silver US Indian Peace Medal
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Prints
1838 McKinney and Hall “Wa-Baun-See, A Pottawatomie Chief” Shown Wearing His Silver U.S. Indian Peace Medal
1838-Dated, Hand-Colored Thomas McKinney (1785-1859) and James Hall (1793-1868) Lithograph Print: “Wa-Baun-See, A Pottawatomie Chief,” shown wearing his Silver Presidential Portrait United States Mint Indian Peace Medal, published by “F.W. Greenough, Philad,” Choice Extremely Fine.
This colorful Litho Print measures about 12.5” x 18” (by sight), matted and framed to an overall size of 19.75” x 25.75” having slight even tone to the paper with good color shown under Plexiglas. The Chief is shown wearing his Silver Presidential Portrait United States Mint Indian Peace Medal, while being dressed in a blue military uniform with golden braided shoulder epaulettes. 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 well known New York Gallery shows a very similar quality example online, retail priced at $2,500. 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.