A painted portrait of an Indigenous person wearing a headdress.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A painted portrait of an Indigenous person, who wears a dark-colored coat, a cravat, and a single feather headdress.

Gallery Text

Clad in a blue frock coat, a feathered headdress, a brocade waistcoat, shirt points, a silver necklace, face paint, and a black cravat, [Weesh-Cub] transmits confidence, acutely aware of the western style of dress and the relationship between clothing, power, and formations of autonomy and cultural belonging across intersectional identities. The multicolor bandolier strap across the torso suggests the leader may be wearing a medicine bundle.

Alongside leaders and representatives from the Council of Three Fires (a millennia-long Anishinaabe national alliance of the Ojibwe/Chippewa, Odawa/Ottawa, and Potawatomi Peoples), [Weesh-Cub] gathered with delegations of the Ho-Chunk, Iowa, Menominee, Sioux, Sac, and Fox and the United States in August 1825 to diplomatically resolve tensions caused by U.S. mining, settler encroachment, and debates over land and water rights that were disrupting the French–U.S. fur trade.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2023.188
People
Henry Inman, American (Utica, NY 1801 - 1846 New York, NY)
Title
Anishinaabe delegate to the First Treaty of Prairie du Chien; believed [Weesh-Cub (The Sweet)] of the Chippewa
Other Titles
Former Title: Chippewa Delegate
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1832-1834
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/333006

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
76.8 x 64.1 cm (30 1/4 x 25 1/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mark Hollingsworth and Edmund I. Tileston (Hollingsworth and Tileston Paper Company); to Edmund P. Tileston and Amor Hollingsworth; gift of their heirs to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1882, transfer; to Harvard Art Museums, 2023

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, gift of the heirs of E. P. Tileston and Amor Hollingsworth, 1882
Accession Year
2023
Object Number
2023.188
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall, Catalogue of One Hundred and Seventeen Indian Portraits: representing eighteen different tribes, accompanied by a few brief remarks on the character &c. of most of them (Philadelphia, 1836), p. 24
  • Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America: with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs, Volume I, Edward C. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1836-1837)
  • A Festival of Western American Art at Hirschl and Adler, October 12-November 17, 1984, auct. cat., Hirschl & Adler Galleries (New York, 1984)
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 29, 289-90, cat. 236, ill.
  • Cristina Morilla, "Conservation as Cultural Practice: The Portrait Collection of Indigenous Delegates by Henry Inman", Studies in Conservation (March 21, 2024), passim, figs. 7-9
  • Cristina Morilla and Studies in Conservation, Conservation as Cultural Practice: The Portrait Collection of Indigenous Delegates by Henry Inman, Studies in Conservation (https://doi.org/10.1080/00393630.2024.2328383, March 21, 2024), Figure 7, Page 4; Figure 8, Page 4;

Exhibition History

  • One Hundred and Seventeen Indian Portraits, Masonic Hall, Philadelphia, 04/01/1836 - 05/31/1836; [Unknown Venue, New York], 07/01/1836 - 07/31/1836; [Unknown venue, Boston], 08/01/1836 - 08/31/1836; Cosmorama Rooms, London, London, 07/01/1845 - 08/31/1845
  • 32Q: 2200 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/30/2023 - 10/21/2024

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu