Cree Woman

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Artist

Karl Bodmer

Birth and death dates

1809 - 1893

Artist Nationality

Swiss

Title

Cree Woman

Date

October 8, 1833

Dimensions

10 7/16 × 8 11/16 in. (26.5 × 22.1 cm)

Medium

Watercolor and graphite on paper

Institution

Joslyn Art Museum

Credit Line

Gift of the Enron Art Foundation

Accession Number

1986.49.377

Rights (i.e. copyright information)

Joslyn Art Museum

Photographer credit

Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019

Commentary

According to the diaries, Bodmer made two drawings in October of the wife of Deschamps, a man employed by the fur company as a hunter. She was said to be Cree, with a distinctive pattern of blue-black tattoo marks on her chin. Although an inscription associated with Image 1986.49.377 implies that the subject is Assiniboin, these portraits seem clearly to depict the same person and are presumably the paintings done of Deschamps's wife at Fort Union. She was pictured again in Tableau 33 of the aquatint atlas. The woman is wearing a hide dress, possibly elk skin, with a flaplike attachment on the yoke that may be the tail of one of the animals used to make the garment. Her ears are adorned with a pair of elaborate, multi-tiered earrings of dentalium shells and blue beads as well as a number of smaller ones made of the same materials. A detail of the earrings is shown in the corner of Image 1986.49.231.

References in Journal

October 8, 1833

Labels:

genre, portrait , Fort Union, North Dakota

Approximate Depicted Location:

Fort Union, North Dakota