(AMERICAN INDIANS) [Nicolino Calyo after George Catlin] Earl

Sale 2646 - Lot 1

Unsold

Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

(AMERICAN INDIANS.) [Nicolino Calyo, after George Catlin.] Early copy of a Catlin portrait by an Italian artist in the States. Watercolor and ink, 14 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches, unsigned, captioned "Portrait of Mah-To-Toh-Pa, Chief of the Mandan Indians Tribe, Upper Missouri"; moderate foxing, minor repairs to right edge. [New York, circa early 1840s]

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The artist Nicolino Calyo was an Italian immigrant to New York, best known for painting portraits and portfolios of New York street vendors. This American Indian portrait was done in his distinctive style, and the handwriting in the caption matches his own. The source material was far from Calyo's usual territory, though. It is a highly stylized rendering of George Catlin's 1832 painting "Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief, in Full Dress," which Calyo may have seen when Catlin exhibited it in New York circa 1838. More likely, Calyo worked from the published lithograph in Catlin's 1841 "Letters and Notes." The knife in this figure's hair much more closely resembles the one in the lithograph than in the original Catlin painting. Either way, this is an appealing piece of American folk art in its own right.