Manabosho's Devices 1849 - 1855

drawing

pastel soft colours

ink paper printed

retro 'vintage design

culinary art

pattern background

fabric design

united-states

watercolour bleed

textile design

layered pattern

soft colour palette

"Manabosho's Devices" is a watercolor on paper by Seth Eastman, created between 1849 and 1855, and currently housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Eastman, a military officer and artist, documented Native American culture through his work. This specific piece depicts a series of pictographs believed to be from the Ojibwe people. The artwork is a testament to Eastman's interest in Native American culture and serves as a valuable record of Ojibwe pictographic traditions, providing insights into their beliefs, stories, and symbolic language.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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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.