Bodmer, Karl | Péhriska-Rúhpa, one of Bodmer's masterpieces of portraiture

Bodmer, Karl

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

Hand-colored aquatint engraving by Paul Legrand after Bodmer, blindstamp (plate size: 508 x 365 mm; sheet size: 628 x 457 mm); very faintly toned. Framed; not examined out of frame.

One of Bodmer's masterpieces of portraiture, composed during his stop-over at Fort Clark in the winter of 1833-1834.

The present portrait depicts Péhriska-Rúhpa (“Two Ravens”), the warrior and chief of the Hidatsa tribe. Portrayed as a figure of great dignity, Bodmer displays Péhriska-Rúhpa’s power and rank symbolically through 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 made from the foreclaws of grizzly bears, preferably those taken in the spring when the claws were large, comparatively unworn, and showing white tips. With a decorated buffalo robe over one shoulder and an elaborate pipe in the crook of his other arm, Péhriska-Rúhpa is endowed with power, respect, and reverence. 

REFERENCES

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