Minneapolis Institute of Art

Manabosho's Devices

Seth Eastman

Date

1849–55

Medium

Pen, ink, and watercolor on paper

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft reportedly collected these pictographs, which he named for the mythic Ojibwe character Manabosho, around Lake Superior. Although it is unclear how accurately the pictographs were transcribed, they were intended to describe a story, chant, or historical event. Seth Eastman painted four sheets of pictographs as the basis for the illustrations in Schoolcraft's Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (1851-57), and these original watercolors are among the 35 works on paper by Eastman in Mia’s collection. Americas

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