Coming Together, Staying Put

These delicately painted watercolors are some of the earliest images of St. Louis inhabitants. The artist, Anna Maria von Phul, learned drawing and watercolor as part of her education at a genteel women’s academy in Kentucky. While she primarily painted as a hobby, her subjects included landscapes, buildings, furniture, clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, horse-drawn carriages, and people engaged in everyday activities.

In 1817–1818 she traveled to St. Louis to visit her brother. During her time in the city, she was captivated by its dynamic mix of cultures and filled her sketchbooks with detailed impressions of the residents’ dress. Her watercolors of local people, such as Creole Woman in St. Louis, focus on her subjects’ clothing, hairstyles, jewelry, and other aspects of fashion that interested her. The colors of the woman’s outfit and her tignon, or headwrap, identify her as Creole—a community of French ancestry from New Orleans who founded St. Louis in the 1760s.

Native American Woman in St. Louis also shows von Phul’s attention to dress. Though small in scale, von Phul’s painting includes details of the subject’s moccasins, necklace, and earrings. The pattern of vermilion paint on the woman’s face and along the part in her hair indicates she is likely a member of the Osage or Missouria (Nutachi) Nations. Though painted from a visitor’s perspective, von Phul’s paintings illustrate the relationship between dress and cultural stories and offer a glimpse of the variety of people and cultures that arrived in St. Louis and the confluence region.

Exuberantly dyed feather dusters and Wazhazhe-style ribbon work and embroidery adorn this coat and hat. Since at least the late 1700s, leaders of Wazhazhe peoples living in Missouri received military coats as diplomatic gifts that symbolized status. In the following years this style of coat was often embellished and worn as the outer layer of bridal attire. In the early 1900s coats like this one were made by Wazhazhe artists or sourced from military or band uniform suppliers, then decorated with ribbon work and embroidery, and the hats were reimagined with colorful dust feathers and other trim. The use of wedding clothes persists in Wazhazhe annual dances.

By the late 1800s the Osage Nation had moved to its Oklahoma reservation. Passed down through families, these garments have been folded into Wazhazhe culture and aesthetics, demonstrating the creativity with which Wazhazhe peoples have deployed non-Indigenous materials for their own uses.

Mandan war leader Mató-Tópe created this Robe as a powerful narrative self-portrait. Eight battle scenes from his life surround a sunlike circle of abstracted eagle feathers at the center of the robe. Mató-Tópe’s most famous battle is depicted next to the red cloth strip in the lower right of the image. A grueling battle between a Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) chief, in green, and Mató-Tópe, on the right in red, ended up in hand-to-hand combat. Mató-Tópe received a deep wound in his hand before killing the Tsistsistas enemy with his own knife. Painted robes such as Mató-Tópe’s are part of Plains male artistic practice of painting autobiographical events.

A devoted artist, Mató-Tópe carefully studied the work of European and American artists who visited him. In his robe, he incorporated European techniques of pictorial volume and depth into the flat, pictographic conventions of Plains narrative art. He shared a narrative account of these battles with painter George Catlin, who visited Fort Clark, North Dakota, which was situated near Mandan lands. Mató-Tópe also developed a relationship with Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who spent a winter at Fort Clark in 1833–1834. During the winter at Fort Clark, Mató-Tópe and Bodmer shared artistic languages and materials. The results can be seen in the robe’s interior shading and modeling of form, which is similar to that of European painting. Mató-Tópe observed Bodmer’s style and deftly combined it with poses and styles common in Plains art.

Mató-Tópe and more than 90 percent of the Mandan peoples tragically perished in 1837 during the smallpox epidemic. His robe, considered a pivotal work of Plains art, traveled down the Missouri River along trade routes from his winter home near Fort Clark to Kansas City, Missouri. It was purchased there later that year by merchant Alphons Schoch and displayed in his St. Louis home.

https://www.slam.org/audio/art-along-the-rivers/?stop=2

As early as the 1760s fur traders made St. Louis a base for their excursions into the upper Missouri and northern plains areas, and they were later followed by explorers seeking scientific and military information. These expeditions often included artists who would give visual reality to written description. In 1833 Karl Bodmer accompanied the Prussian naturalist Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied on an early expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River as far as Fort McKenzie, Montana. Bodmer’s sketches and watercolors of the landscape and inhabitants of the region were celebrated for both their eloquence and articulate detail, as exemplified by a hand-colored engraving made by another artist based on Bodmer’s watercolor of the Mandan leader Mató-Tópe.

While living at Fort Clark, Bodmer created this portrait of Mató-Tópe. The portrait is filled with careful observations of Mató-Tópe’s dress, which conveyed his high rank in his community, such as the split-horn headdress and quilled moccasins with wolf tails. His shirt of bighorn sheepskin is elaborately trimmed with ermine tails, locks of hair, navy and red stroud trade cloth, and red marks representing wounds inflicted by his enemies. The exceptionally long headdress and feathered lance with scalps further indicate his high-ranking status. In this portrait Mató-Tópe also chose to wear the robe he designed. Bodmer prioritized physical likeness in communicating Mató-Tópe’s status. In contrast, the leader’s self-portrait communicates his authority through visual narratives.

Image Credits in Order of Appearance

Anna Maria von Phul, American, 1786–1823; Creole Woman in St. Louis, 1818; watercolor on paper; 9 7/8 x 7 3/4 inches; Courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis 2021.47

Anna Maria von Phul, American, 1786–1823; Native American Woman in St. Louis, 1818; watercolor on paper; 9 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches; Courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis 2021.48

Wazhazhe (Osage) artist; Wedding Coat, Plume Hat, 1900s; epaulet pair, c.1830; coat: cloth and metal, hat: feathers and cloth, epaulets: velvet, thread, and gold; overall: 77 x 42 inches; Denver Art Museum: Native Arts Acquisition Fund, Gift of Mrs. Harry English 2021.80-82a,b; Photography courtesy Denver Art Museum

Mató-Tópe, Mandan, c.1784–1837; Robe, c.1835; hide, pigment, hair, and quills; 78 3/4 x 90 15/16 inches; Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bern 2021.95

Karl Bodmer, Swiss, 1809–1893; after Johann Hürlimann, Swiss, 1793–1850; Mató-Tópe, a Mandan Chief, 1843; hand-colored engraving and aquatint; 23 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas 2021.157