Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) Massika (Saki Indian) and Wakusasse (Musquake Indian). 1840, First State, Tab. 3. From Travels in the Interior of North America [Paris: A. Bertrand; Colbenz: J Hölscher; London: Ackermann & Co. 90 Strand] Aquatint, mezzotint and stipple; superb original hand-color with gum Arabic. Plate: 15 7/8 x 19 3/8 in. Bodmer blind stamp. 2 tears along lower margin; minor discoloration along left margin; minor indentation at lower left of image. Good condition.
$7,000.00
Prince Maximilian and Karl Bodmer met a number of Sauk and Fox individuals in St. Louis in April 1833, including Massika (Turtle) and Wakusásse (no translation given). Bodmer painted the two portraits in this aquatint in early April, 1833. Massika or “Turtle,” pictured at left, was one of a delegation of Sauk and Fox who came to St. Louis to ask for the release of Black Hawk, a chief who had been imprisoned by the U.S. government following an uprising on the Illinois frontier in 1832. Maximilian may in fact have misinterpreted the name Massika as “Turtle”; it is more likely that he was called “Bear”, both words being very similar in the native tongue. The marks on the man’s face resemble “Bear Claw” marks worn by members of the bear clan.
The print’s composition is based on two separate drawings rather than a double portrait. In a later reference to the aquatint, Maximilian said that another man was to have been featured with Massika in the European atlas, His portrait could not be reproduced to Bodmer’s satisfaction, and that of Wakasasse was used, instead.
Karl Bodmer was a little-known Swiss painter when he was chosen by Prince Maximilian of Prussia to accompany his voyage to America, in order to document in pictorial terms, the expedition. With the rest of Maximilian’s company, the two traveled among the Plains and Rockies from 1832 to 1834, a time when the area was still virtually unknown. They arrived in the West before acculturation had begun to change the lives of the Indians, and Bodmer, who was a protege of the great naturalist von Humboldt, brought a trained ethnologist’s eye to the task. The Bodmer/Maximilian collaboration produced a record of their expedition that is considered one of the finest and most complete documentations of the Plains Indians before the epidemics of the mid-19th century had decimated their numbers, and before European expansion had taken their lands. After the conclusion of the journey, Bodmer spent four years in Paris supervising the production of the aquatints made from his drawings. In contrast to other artist-explorers of the 19th century, such as George Catlin, Bodmer was well-trained in the classic European tradition. The work that he did in America is considered to be the high point of a distinguished career.
Ref: Karl Bodmer’s North American Prints, Joslyn Art Museum: Omaha, Nebraska, 2004
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