HODGE— INDIAN PORTRAIT GALLERY 



warded to be deposited in the War Office. Mr Lewis sketches admirable likenesses 

 in water colours upon paper for about five dollars, and an expenditure of $200 

 would accomplish the whole object. In a national point of view, it cannot be 

 unimportant to form a gallery of portraits of our most distinguished aborigines, 

 who [are] rapidly passing away, and will ere long disappear. l 



Living in Detroit, Cass was familiar with Lewis's work, for both 

 were present at the treaty of Prairie du Chien in August, 1825, and 

 it is evident' that the artist received every encouragement from the 

 statesman, for we find them together at various other treaties in 

 1826 and 1827. 



That the suggestion of Cass met with sympathetic interest on the 

 part of Calhoun and McKenney is attested by the fact that three 

 weeks after Cass wrote from Detroit, an order for sixteen Indian por- 

 traits was given by McKenney, who stated in his response to Cass 

 that "it is desirable for the size of the portraits to be enlarged so as 

 to measure 17 }4 inches one way and 14 the other, to match those which 

 have already been taken of chiefs in this city." It is thus seen that 

 while Cass manifested interest and lent his aid in the matter, McKen- 

 ney had already been the inspiration of the effort; indeed he mentions 

 in his Memoirs that Indian portraits adorned the walls of his office. 

 But we have no direct information respecting the individuals whose 

 portraits were thus painted by Lewis, although there is no question that 

 at least thirteen pictures, mostly of members of a Creek delegation, 

 were painted at Washington by Charles Bird King in 1825, the year 

 in which the order was given. King had been a pupil of Benjamin 

 West in London for four years. 



There is direct evidence that McKenney had interested himself 

 in the plan of portraying the features and costumes of Indians as 

 early as 1821, for in that year King painted an Oto portrait (no doubt 

 one of those which hung in McKenney 's office in Georgetown), which 

 later found its way to the Indian Gallery of the War Department, and 

 in 1824 the portrait of an Iowa Indian was painted by him — these, 

 with the painting of the Shawnee Prophet by Lewis in 1823, which 

 Cass sent to Washington in December of the following year, may be 

 regarded as the very nucleus of the collection, although it must be 

 said that there is no information respecting the dates of many of the 

 paintings comprising the Gallery, which possibly, during its incipi- 

 ency, may have been made up of others than those mentioned. 



That McKenney was the chief spirit in the formation and growth 

 of the Gallery, and indeed in its very inception, is gleaned also from 



1 Original letter in the Office of Indian Affairs. 

 [189] 



