MISTIPPEE, YOHOLO-MICCO'S SON

When the nation's capital was moved to Washington, D.C., the city attracted a number of portraitists. One of the most successful of those was Charles Bird King, who also studied with Benjamin West (1738-1820) in London. King would achieve success by primarily painting political notables, but he is best remembered today for a series of portraits he made of American Indian chiefs who had come to Washington. These were later collected together in the Smithsonian, although unfortunately most were destroyed by fire in 1865 and are now known only through their lithographic versions. King's surviving portrait of Mistippee, inscribed "Mistipe, Yoholo's-Micco's son, Creek-Indian," provides a sense of the liveliness of the originals. Casually leaning against a plinth, the young Mistippee is shown in clothing that clearly marks him as an American Indian, but in a pose that is thoroughly European. The young boy and his father were probably in Washington to negotiate on behalf of the Creeks who had been in contentious treaty negotiations with the government for many years.