Ongpatonga (Big Elk). Chief of the Omahas
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: OPPS NEG.50059
label: Local Note
content: Black and white copy negative
name: label: Creator
content: Neagle, John
creator: label: Creator
content: Neagle, John
culture: label: Culture
content: Omaha
label: Culture
content: Indians of North America -- Great Plains
setName: label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives
label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives / Additional Materials / Neagle, John
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Photograph (3 1/2x4 3/4 in)
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: To: Mrs Margaret Blaker. From: John C. Ewers. December 11, 1962. Subject: Portrait of Big Elk used in frontispiece in Morton's Crania Americana. I think that Big Elk may have been a member of the 1821 delegation of Indians from the Central Plains to Washington. John Neagle painted portraits of some, but probably not all of them, in Philadelphia. I believe you have on file photos of some of these, the originals of which are now in the Pennsylvania Historical Society. King's portraits of a number of these Indians are much better known than these. I know of no King portrait of Big Elk. It is difficult to judge an artist's original style from a lithograph produced from the original by another artist. But, the style certainly doesn't resemble King's work to me. I would assume that because Morton and Neagle were both Philadelphians, the artist is correctly atttributed in the caption on the lithograph. Thank you very much for the print. I should like to have it. In my opinion it is a better rendering of an Indian face than King was accustomed to produce. This may be another reason to believe the artist was John Neagle.