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ABSTRACT
This article explores the complex material history of the portrait collection of Indigenous delegates by Henry Inman (1801–1846), and the ethical dilemmas raised during the last conservation campaign. The so-called ‘Indian Gallery,’ painted by Charles Bird King and copied by Henry Inman in the late 1830s, offers a study case on how conservation can contribute to the visibility of this unique series of 27 Indigenous delegates portraits. Originally commissioned for Thomas L. McKenney as first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the meaning of Henry Inman’s copies shifted when they entered the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in 1882. Turned into ‘docile objects’ their new display had them fit a different ethnographic discourse. Recently transferred to the Harvard Art Museums (2023), the last conservation campaign challenged this discourse and proposed new ways to look at the collection offering a new interpretation through material analysis.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my colleagues at the Straus Conservation Center and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology for their help and support with this campaign, especially Julie Wertz, Kathy Eremin, Kate Smith, Narayan Khandekar, Allison Jackson, Yi Bin Liang, Francesca Bewer, Kara Schneiderman, T. Rose Holdcraft, and Horace Ballard. Thanks immensely to Felipe Pereda for his support and encouragement throughout the process of crafting the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The construction of the image of the ‘Indian’ by colonial painters and beyond has been the subject of extensive literature. For a general overview see Gildey (Citation1992) and Shoemaker (Citation2004).
2 The language employed to describe Native Americans was formulated under the assumption of an almost-extinct culture. Terms such as ‘moribund,’ ‘vanishing,’ and ‘almost extinct’ are prevalent in the correspondences and publications associated with this initiative. For the initiative’s author, Thomas McKenney, it was crucial to preserve the portraits as a cohesive collection, intending them to be appreciated as a sort of catalog.
3 The Indian removal act was signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 and pushed Native people from their ancestral lands to the west of the Mississippi river. At this time several galleries of Native American people were in the making, Charles Bird King’s and George Catlin’s among them. For a detail study see Viola (Citation1981).
4 The original publication was released in Philadelphia between 1836 and 1844 in three volumes, illustrated with 129 folio hand-colored lithographs (McKenney et al. Citation1836–Citation1844).
5 The paintings were exhibited along with the lithographs at the Masonic temple of Philadelphia in 1836. See McKenney et al. (Citation1836).
6 Around 64 of Bird King’s portraits out of a total of approximately 143 survived, mostly copies that he created in a smaller format (12 × 10 in. instead of 17 ½ × 13 ¾). See Consentino (Citation1977, 57–59) and Viola (Citation1976, 137–142).
7 Contemporary Native American scholars reflect on how narratives and visual identity have been externally constructed by White American society. This article pays especial attention to the work of Nancy Shoemaker, Stephanie Pratt, and Philip Deloria among others. See also Berkhofer (Citation1979).
8 The original collection of 116 painting was bequeathed by E. P. Tileston and Amor Hollinsworth in 1882. ‘A gift of great ethnological value has been made to the Museum by the heirs of E.P. Tileston and Amos Hollingsworth. This consist in on one hundred and five oil portraits of Indians of North American tribes, of life size (…) It is understood by the heirs that other portraits belonging to the series, now in the possession of member of the families, are to become property of the museum in accordance to the expressed wish of the later Messrs. Tileston and Hollingsworth ant the collection should not be broken’ Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. Vol III, 1882, pp. 189 and 199. Three more portraits, portrait of Mohongo and child, portrait of Petalesharo, and portrait of Ki-On-Twog-Ky, or Cornplanter, are today in the Phillis Academy of Andover, MA. With provenance not fully documented, the museum contemplates the possibility that these paintings were acquired by Robert S. Peabody when they were exhibited in Philadelphia.
9 The numbers do not coincide with those of the lithographs; they seem to be a later museum record. These numbers have been erased and repainted at least two times as suggested by a recent restoration of one of the faux bois frames. I am thankful to Allison Jackson (Associate Conservator of Frames, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums) for her expertise and help on the restoration of one of these frames.
10 The Catlin’s collection wooden frames were painted in a dark color, possibly trying to imitate mahogany, with a wooden square lamination with a central 1-inch wood circle covered by a very thin layer of leather, and a small cut hammered through the center. Thank you to Martin Kotler, former frames conservator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), for this valuable information.
11 I borrow the expression ‘anthropology museum-style’ from the Booth Museum’s The Indian Gallery of Henry Inman, published online on 14 June – 7 October 2012 https://tfaoi.org/aa/10aa/10aa113.htm. The Peabody Museum still has four of these original frames. The frames are unmistakably original to the paintings; they have the previous owner inscription on the back (Tileston & Hollingsworth) and are similar to those of the Phillis Academy in Andover, MA. Unfortunately, no document could be found concerning the purchase of the flat faux bois frames. The association of Native American subjects with the rustic style and wooden frames is still evident today. The recently closed American Museum of Natural history in New York displayed Indigenous artifacts and mannequins in wooden cases and dioramas, establishing an intentional contrast with the rest of the exhibition cases.
12 The restoration is documented through the correspondence between Edward Reynolds, director of the Peabody by that time, to Edward W. Forbes, director of the Fogg Museum. The number of intervened paintings is specified in six of these letters, recording a total of 63 paintings ‘relined and restored.’ This number was definitely larger since one of the letters mentions a ‘batch’ of paintings restored in 1930. Peabody Museum, Henry Inman’s TMS/Accession Files
13 Charles Durham was a well-known restorer in Boston. He emigrated to the United States and was hired by Edward Waldo Forbes, then the director of the Fogg Museum, in 1927. Forbes though that Durham was a ‘good conscientious old English craftsman’ and made him head of the restoration and gilding studio at the new Fogg. For more about Charles Durham and the Fogg see: Harvard Art Museums/Collection: Papers of Edward Waldo Forbes, 1867–2005 / Series: General Correspondence, Box: 76, Folder: 1741 Identifier: HC 2, I., 1741. According to Forbes ‘Mr. Durham was growing old, and his health failed his sons-in-law took a larger proportion of the work. George (Stout) named one of them “Windy Charlie”. They were not first rate … .’ Harvard Art Museums/Collection: Papers of Edward Waldo Forbes, from 1867 to 2005, HC 2, Box 76.
14 Inman finished the 116 portraits plus many other commissions during the two years he lived in Philadelphia.
15 In 1939 the Peabody Museum loaned eight paintings to the University Museum in Pennsylvania (today’s Penn Museum) for an exhibition.
16 Some of these conservation reports are today at the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA and specify products used for cleaning. No specifics about lining methods or products are described.
17 The Peabody sent the entire collection to Hirschl & Adler (NY), which sold the works to museums, dealers, and private collectors until sales were halted in 1984. Those that were not sold were reaccessioned and returned to the Peabody (Renn and Stebbins Citation2014). The Peabody Museum retained at the end 27 of the portraits. A total of 89 portraits were sold by the Museum during the 1970s and today are scattered in other Museums’ collections. The largest number after the sale went to the High Museum of Atlanta. Other portraits are today at the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Wyoming), and Yale University Art Gallery (Connecticut) among others. See Horan (Citation1972, 358–359).
18 Constance Holden, ‘Peabody Museum Contemplates Sales to Reserve Collections,’ Science, New Series, 10 November 1978, Vol. 202, No. 4368, 604–607. The Notice was published also by Paul Richard, ‘Art Sale at Harvard’s Peabody?’, The Washington Post, 4 November 1978, and by Boyce Rensberger, ‘Museum at Harvard to Restrict Sale of Art,’ New York Times, 10 February 1979.
19 The Gerald Peters Gallery sold some of the paintings previously acquired in NY: Gerald Peters Gallery, Henry Inman, Twenty-four Indian Portraits (catalog), New York, 2008.
20 The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard, partnering with the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies (Harvard Art Museums) developed a pilot conservation project of eight of the 27 portraits of the collection. Without Kara Schneiderman, (Director of Collections at the Peabody Museum), Narayan Khandekar (Director of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies), and Kate Smith (Head of the Paintings Lab, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies) this project would not have been possible. I am grateful for their support and altruism.
21 A total of eight of the 27 portraits that the museum owns has been conserved so far: Mish-Sha-Quat (Clear Sky) 2023.197, Pe-a-jick, 2023.204, Kit-chee-waa-be-shas (The Good Martin) 2023.192, Kanapima, Mother and Child (Chippewa) 2023.189, Ta-sha-col-o-quoit 2023.189, two portraits of ‘Chippewa Man,’ 2023.200, and 2023.201 and two more portraits named ‘Man of Unidentified Tribe’ 2023.193 and 2023.194.
22 Unfortunately, this distinctive feature was erased during past interventions, for example on the portrait of Kit-chee-waa-be-shas (The Good Martin acc. Number 2023.192).
23 Page (Citation1720, 67–68). This is not an isolated example; formulations go across the century in English technical literature. See also, for example Salmon (Citation1701).
24 A technical example was illustrated online by Mark Aronson in relation to the exhibition Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, that took place at the Yale Center for British Art https://news.yale.edu/2014/11/03/scientific-approach-revealing-depictions-race.
25 Scientific analysis and interpretation by Julie Wertz (former Beal Family Postgraduate Fellow in Conservation Science, Straus center) and Kathy Eremin (Patricia Cornwell Senior Conservation Scientist, Straus Center). A more variety of colors can be found in the attires of the delegates, like chrome yellow for regalia and Prussian blue for attire. Blacks, likely carbon black and occasionally umber (identified through the presence of manganese), were mostly used to paint the sitters’ hair.
26 The use of blue by Inman is described by his contemporaries: ‘We refer to the liberal use of Prussian blue, which often pervaded his background, and, from the diffusible nature of this very awkward pigment, sometimes got into his flesh.’ Inman’s landscapes and composition: Unknown author, ‘Henry Inman,’ Bulletin of the American Art-Union No. 5 (August 1850): 69–73.
27 Conferences and lectures about the conservation of the Inman collection were presented at the College Art Association Conference in Chicago 12–16 February 2019, The Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany) January 2022, and Summer Institute Technical Studies in Art, Harvard Art Museums, (Cambridge) 8–16 June 2022. An extensive study of Native American depiction of race is given in Cristina Morilla and Julie Wertz, ‘Color and the Representation of Race: A Look into the Portraits of Indigenous Leaders by Henry Inman,’ American Art Journal, Smithsonian Institution (under review).
28 I am grateful to Prof. Shawon Kinew (Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University) and Meredith Vasta (Collections Steward, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University) for their invaluable help and expertise. Without their input this article and the conservation work in general would not have been as meaningful as it is today.
29 Jaidyn Probst, Inman Portrait Collection, Blog of Harvard Peabody Collections, published in 2021, All Images and Text ©2021, President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
30 My gratitude to Francesca Bewer (Research Curator, Conservation and Technical Study Programs, and Director of Summer Institute for Technical Studies in Art at Harvard Art Museums) who selected this project for the students to work on and present.
31 Horace Ballard, Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Curator of American Art, contacted the nations to inform them that their community members’ portraits were going on display. He also conveyed the museums’ enthusiasm to engage with, learn from, and welcome possible descendants whose portraits were featured in the collection.
32 Several museums started similar initiatives on this regard. The Metropolitan Museum is a good example with its initiative on native Perspective, https://www.metmuseum.org/aboutthe-met/collection-areas/the-american-wing/native-perspectives.