Day 285 - Portrait and still life

 February 24, 2022

Gallery 756 is devoted to portraits and still lifes painted between 1800 and 1850. Most of the portraits are by artists whose names are at least somewhat familiar to me (although sometimes as landscape painters): Washington Alston, Asher Durand, Rembrandt Peale, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Thomas Sully (whose  full-length portrait of a very young - and, I suspect, considerably prettified-  Queen Victoria hangs here). I don't care for  most of these - they smack of sentimentality to me. But I do very much like an oil-on-canvas portrait of a Pawnee chief, Pes-Ke-Le-Cha-Co, painted by Henry Inman around 1832-1833. Measuring roughly 30 inches wide and 28 inches high., the work conveys a strong sense of the subject's  dignity. The chief is shown from the waist up; a cloak, lined with fur (buffalo?) and suspended from his left shoulder ,covers his otherwise bare chest and resembles a classical toga. His face is seen in three-quarters view, and the artist has emphasized the chief's strong nose and cheekbones and far-seeing eyes.  The muted palette of mostly browns and blue-grays, accented  by the chief's headdress of red feathers and a red cord holding a medallion around his neck, adds to the air of seriousness; the legend says that Pes-Ke-Le-Che-Co was celebrated at the time as a "firm, determined man, an expert hunter, and fearless warrior."  Interestingly, while the chief's earrings and beaded collar are native American, the medallion shows the head of a European-American in profile. Who was this person,  I wonder, and how did the chief acquire the medallion?

The Met, ever conscious of the need to be politically correct, includes a placard written by Crystal Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation. It's an encomium to the Pawnee people, noting that, "The history of the Pawnee is one of great strength, innovation, beauty and resiliency." I look up the tribe on Wikipedia and learn that its members sustained themselves through farming and buffalo hunting and were a relatively peaceful people  - their battles were mainly with other tribes who encroached on their territory. What the Met placard doesn't say is that their rituals included the annual sacrifice of a virgin. Whites put an end to this practice - but also brought smallpox and measles, which decimated the tribe.

I'm about to leave the gallery when I notice a small still life (maybe 24 inches wide and 18 inches high) that greatly appeals. Painted by James Peale sometimes in the 1820s, it's entitled "Balsam Apple and Vegetables." I have no idea what a balsam apple is - that fruit that looks like berries within a husk? But I admire the skill with which Peale has depicted the shiny red tomatoes, the knobby green-and-yellow squash, and the curly leaves of the vegetable in the background. The signage tells me it's Savoy cabbage, but I prefer to think it's kale - a new favorite of mine (at least when sauteed with plenty of garlic and red pepper flakes).