Karl Bodmer 1809 - 1893

John Painter, Cincinnati

Brandon K. Rudd, Marsha Gallagher et al., Karl Bodmer's North American Prints, Omaha, 2004, pp. 94 and 260, illustrated; prints illustrated, pp. 93 & 259  

Please note that work was not examined out of frame as edges are intact and show clearly; in generally good condition; scattered handling creases; edges are slightly worn (particularly lower edge); soiling to blank areas of sheet: scattered stains, smudges, spots of foxing
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In March, 1833, Prince Maximilian's expedition to North America, on which Bodmer was the official artist, reached St. Louis.  They had been invited there by General William Clark to observe a delegation of Sauk and Fox dignitaries who had come to plead for the release of Blackhawk, a chief who had been imprisoned for his part in an uprising in 1832. 

Messika, a Sauk, was among them and he was one of the first Indians encountered by the expedition.  Bodmer studied the group carefully, noting, for example, that the men shaved their heads, leaving only a short tuft of hair and a thin braid.  To this they often attached a roach, the crest-like ornament made of stiff deer hair pictured in the present drawing.  The prince was clearly impressed by Messika and his tribesmen.  He drew several meticulous studies of Sauk roaches and even a portrait of him in his private journal of the trip. 

The present work is one of the few important Bodmer drawings left in private hands and relates to two of Bodmer's prints.  The first, Tableau 3, Mássika, Saki Indian.  Wakussáse, Musquake Indian, (fig. 1) is a double portrait of Messika with Wakussáse, a member of the Fox tribe. 

The second, Vignette X, Saukie and Fox Indians, (fig. 2), shows a group of six men from the Indian delegation and was probably meant to show the group as it arrived on the banks of the Mississippi River.  Brandon Rudd believes that Messika is the figure on the far left and goes on to state that the present drawing "is the only known individual study for the print". (Rudd, op cit., p. 260)