American beauty - seven portraits of children by Elbridge Ayer Burbank

 

The Sunflower, 1894.

I posted last February about the wonderful work of Elbridge Ayer Burbank. And while he is best remembered for his remarkable depictions of Native Americans, he also produced a handful of sensitive portraits of African American children.

Portrait of a Shy Girl, 1899.

Portrait of a Young Black Boy, circa 1892.

Portrait of a Girl with Bow in Her Hair, 1899.

American Beauty, 1892.

Girl with  a Candle, 1896. 

Boy with a Candle, circa 1886.

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I've had to clean up these images considerably to be able to post them here. Because, as photographed, the condition of most of these pieces is/was very poor. Whatever the cause, be it actual damage, mere neglect, or possibly as the result of improper techniques deployed by the artist, I hope they've subsequently been properly conserved. I think they deserve - for reasons both historical and aesthetic - to be seen at their best.

Portrait of a Shy Girl - detail, 1899.

Little boys - ten portraits of young gentlemen

 

 Enfant et femme dans un intérieur, by Paul Mathey, circa 1890. The child is the artist's son, Jacques.

Portrait of a young boy, by Elbridge Ayer Burbank, circa 1892.

Knabenbildnis - portrait of Heinrich Butzer, by Franz von Stuck, 1922.

El Pescador, by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, 1904.

Portrait de jeune garçon, by François-Joseph Navez, 1831.

Édouard André, a copy after Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1845.

Portrait of a boy with a miniature three-masted ship, by Pieter van der Werff, 1696.

Ritratto di ragazzo, by Bronzino, circa 1540-45.

Portrait of a young boy wearing the Décoration du Lys, by Louis-Léopold Boilly, circa 1814.

Pas mèche (Nothing Doing), by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1882.

Not vanish - portraits by Elbridge Ayer Burbank

 

 Gi-aum-e Hon-o-me-tah, 1897.

Pah-Puh, 1898.

Poe-Shom-Ee, 1904.

Quen-Chow-A, 1897.

Christian-Naiche, circa 1899.

Chief Black-Coyote, 1901.

Tlo-Be-Nel-Ly, 1910.

Pah-Lah-Wool-Ey, 1904.

A-A-Wah, 1904.

Chief Po-Ka-Gon (Simon Pokagon), 1898.

Night-Killer, circa 1890s.

O-Ko-A-Po-Bi, circa 1900. I believe this to be a vintage print made after the original painting.

Mother and Children, 1908.

Chief Geronimo, 1899.

Shield, 1899.

Zy-You-Wa. This is a vintage print made after the original painting.

Wick-Ah-Te-Wah, 1898.

Curley, 1897.

Pahl-Lee, 1898.

Two portraits of Ton-Had-Dle, 1899.

Rain-in-the-Face, circa 1890s.

Ho-Mo-Vi, 1898.

Rah-Ah-Rah and Baby, Juane, 1898.

(I'm very uncertain about the spelling and, especially, the correct usage of capitalization in the Native American names. I've tried, without success, to verify the proper forms. So I apologize if I've totally mucked it up.)

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Elbridge Ayer (E. A.) Burbank (10 August 1858, Harvard, Illinois - 21 April 1949, San Francisco),  American artist known for his portraits of Native Americans; by 1914 he'd completed more than twelve hundred, from one-hundred and twenty-five tribes. After attending public schools, he enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Design, and later completed two periods of extended study in Munich, 1886-87 and 1889-1890. His maternal uncle Edward E. Ayer was a successful business magnate, museum philanthropist, and antiquarian collector of books, original manuscripts, and other materials relating to the history and ethnology of Native American peoples at the time of European encounter. This would appear to have some influence on the nephew's artistic focus. Over a period of several years, Burbank spent many months at the Hubbell Trading Post in Arizona, where he studied and painted Native Americans; he also spent time at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and at Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. He painted portraits of the greatest living Native American leaders, including Geronimo, Red Cloud and Chief Joseph; he is believed to be the only person to paint the military and spiritual leader Geronimo from life. The eighty-year-old Oglala Lakota Chief Blue Horse who had befriended Burbank, called him “Son of the Shadow-Maker.” As an adult, Burbank was diagnosed with what would now be called bipolar disorder. He was treated at several different facilities during his life, most notably for more than ten years at the State Mental Hospital in Napa, California. He died at the age of ninety in San Francisco, after being struck and severely injured, three months earlier, by a cable car.

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As an example of how tricky it can often be when preparing images for my blog posts, these are the two versions I found of the portrait of Ton-Had-Dle shown above. Both were good quality images, both from very respectable websites. So how, without being able to see the work in person, would I know which - if either - most closely resembled the actual article...?