Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 185

Unsold
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(AMERICAN INDIANS--PHOTOGRAPHS.) Hillers, John K.; photographer. Large portrait of Little Bear of the Cheyennes. Albumen print, 9 1/4 x 7 inches, on plain mount; one-inch stain in lower left corner of image, mount chipped and stained, laid down on later board; framer's notes on verso of board. [Okmulgee, OK, 10 May 1875]

Additional Details

John Karl Hillers (1843-1925) was an expedition photographer for John Wesley Powell. His diary for 10 May 1875, believed to be the day he shot this image, reads "I found six Cheyennes who had just left the war path, all strappen big fellows. I took them among rocks and set them up as food for my camera." The sitter Little Bear was a survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre.