Cased Ferrotype Style Portrait, Red Cloud, Ninth Plate
Cased Ferrotype Style Portrait, Red Cloud, Ninth Plate
Chief Red Cloud: Oglala Lakota
Ca. 1880
Image, iron, wood, leather, brass, velvet
Plate: 5,1cm x 6,6cm
Plate & Frame: 6,6 x 7,6cm
Collection Date: 2021
Collection Number: 156
A Ferrotype style cased portrait of the Oglala Lakota Native American Chief Red Cloud. Born Mahpiya Lúta (Red Cloud:1821- 1909), official Oglala Souix Tribe.
The image is on an iron plate (magnetic) behind glass housed in a wooden case covered in embossed leather and lined with velvet with a gilt brassware frame. The case is sometimes referred to as a "union case," developed in 1852 using an early resin- based thermoplastic of finely ground sawdust and shellac pressed and steam heated, then dyed. Brass hook and eye clasp on one side. Scuffs to the case with the loss of binding. Blisters around the edges. Reticulated wrinkles and one flaked spot. Ninth Plate size.
The original cabinet card is located at the Met Museum with the following caption. "Throughout the nineteenth century, the U.S. government invited hundreds of Native American delegations to Washington, D.C., in an effort to seek peace, negotiate treaties, and acquire tribal land. Delegation photography was a routine part of any state visit, and many portrait studios, including that of Charles M. Bell, profited from the business.
Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta, 1822-1909), the principal chief of the Oglala, Lakota, was born on the Platte River in Nebraska Territory. He was one of the few Native American leaders to win a military campaign against the U.S. Army, successfully resisting in 1865-66 the government's development of the Bozeman Trail. A signatory of many treaties and a frequent visitor to the capital, Red Cloud sat for this portrait in June 1880 as part of a special delegation investigating the treatment of students at the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This cabinet card (6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches) portrait shows Red Cloud wearing an animal-skin shirt and a breastplate of bones, called hair-pipes, edged with brass beads. He also wears a single feather from a golden eagle."
This photo was purchased at auction from Hollsopple, Pennsylvania, approximately 120 miles from where the photograph was originally taken in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and 141 years later. Purchased in 2021.