Moanahonga (Great Walker), An Ioway Chief

Maker Charles Bird King (American, 1785 - 1862)

Collections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Dateca. 1824

Mediumoil on panel

Dimensionscanvas: 17 1/2 × 13 3/4 in. (44.5 × 34.9 cm.) frame: 20 7/8 × 17 3/8 × 2 1/4 in. (53 × 44.1 × 5.7 cm.)

InscribedInscribed on verso: Mah-ne-hah-nak Ioway Chief Great Walker

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation Acquisition Fund for American Art and the Art Collectors' Council, the Lynn K. Altman Family Trust, Janis and Rudy Mercado Art Acquisitions Fund, the Angeles Attic Museum Fund for Art Acquisitions, in memory of Jackie McMahan and Eleanor Pitts La Vove

Status

On view

Label TextIn this striking portrait of Moanahonga (Great Walker), Charles Bird King carefully renders markers of the sitter's leadership and power—his extraordinary gunstock war club with pierced decoration on the iron blade, his tufted deerskin headdress (called a roach), red-tipped feathers, silver and shell jewelry, and his body paint in red and black, all of which refer to his tribal status and skill as a warrior. Commissioned by the U.S. government, King produced over a hundred such portraits of Native American leaders who had come to Washington, D.C., during the 1820s and 1840s to negotiate treaty settlements. The visit in 1824 by Moanahonga and seventeen Ioway (Iowa) leaders resulted in the dispossession of their land in the northern half of Missouri and the group's removal westward to what is now the Kansas-Nebraska border.

Object number2021.2