Bodmer, Karl

Péhriska-Rúhpa. [A Minatarre or Big-Bellied Indian]. [Tab. 17]. [Paris, Coblenz, and London: 1839-1842]

Aquatint (sheet size: 629 x 457 mm).

One of Bodmer's masterpieces of portraiture.

This powerful portrait of Péhriska-Rúhpa ("Two Ravens") present🐭s the warrior and chief of the Hidatsa as a figure of great dignity. He adopts an attitude that would have been familiar to all men of power and rank, his worth displaye𒈔d symbolically in his clothing and adornment. His shirt is trimmed with bands of bright yellow quillwork, elaborately fringed with ermine, locks of human hair, and dyed horsehair. He wears a striped woolen breechclout and quilled leggings of deer skin. Around his neck is a necklace of bear claws, fastened to an otter-skin band and spaced with blue and white beads. Symbols of great wealth, these necklaces were made from the foreclaws of grizzly bears, preferably from animals taken in the spring when the claws were large, comparatively unworn, and showing white tips. A decorated buffalo robe over one shoulder and arm, Péhriska-Rúhpa holds his decorated pipe in the crook of his other arm. 

There are two distinct stateಌs of this image:💫 one with three small figures in the mid ground to the right of the main figure, and a second where these figures have been removed. 

REFERENCE

Graff 4648; Howes M443a; Pilling 2521; Sabinꦕ 47014; Wagner-Camp 76:1

PROVENANCE

A powerful portra💝it of Péhriska-Rúhpa ("Tw🤪o Ravens")