[NATIVE AMERICAN PORTRAIT]. "Hayne Hudjihini Eagle of Delight." Hand-colored lithograph from a folio edition of McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes of North America

Philadelphia: E.C. Biddle, 1833. Very good. Hand-colored lithograph by Lehman & Duval after Charles Bird King (445 x 338 mm). Head-and-shoulders portrait of female Oto, wife of Chief Shaumonekusse, long black braids with hair parted at center, white and black beaded ear loops, four necklaces, silver bracelet, ruffled blouse or dress top, white and black fur or shawl loosely wrapped around her shoulders, one delicate hand showing. Very mild uniform age-toning (professionally washed). Original lithograph - NOT a reproduction! Hayne Hudjihini or Eagle of Delight (ca. 1804-1822) accompanied her husband to Washington, D.C. in 1821 and so delighted those she met that she was loaded down with presents and King painted several portraits of her. She was thought to be the most beautiful of all the Native American wives who visited Washington. Unfortunately, she died of measles shortly after her return home. A portrait of her hangs in the White House Library.

When leaders of various tribes came to visit President Monroe, McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs and a defender of Native American interests, commissioned artist Charles Bird King to paint portraits of the delegates in their choice of dress. Most of King's original paintings subsequently burned in a fire at the Smithsonian. The lithographs in McKenney and Hall's publication are the only extant record of the likenesses of many of the prominent Native American leaders of the nineteenth century.

In our lithograph the two small silver portions on the nose of the sitter have combined with sulfur and oxydized to black. In other copies these portions are white.

See: Howes M129. Bennett, American Nineteenth-Century Color Plate Books, p. 79. Field 992. Lipperheide Mc4.