Description
Head and shoulders frontal portrait of a man, looking slightly to the left, with shoulder-length hair, a moustache, a small beard beneath the chin and a bone ornament beneath the lower lip. He is wearing a jacket with a red yoke trimmed with fur at the neck and with fur strips hanging from the shoulders of the sleeves
Joppien / Smith number for this drawing is 3.290l. Thought to be a study for the engraving in Ellis' Voyages (1782) A man of the island of Unalaschka, Vol II, fp 45, although the engraving is a full length portrait and the man lacks the bone lip ornament
Ellis, Vol II, p. 45 describes 'the people of Unalaschka ... the common dress of the men is a jacket, made of the skins of birds, the feathered side worn inwards; but the best jackets are painted red on the fore and hind part, as low as the shoulders and breast, and at the insertion of the sleeves along the seam, and on the body of the jacket, are fastened strips of fur in rows ... They also wear ... bones of various forms in their under-lip ...'
Other Titles - Unalaska
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
Alexander Turnbull Library
Location
Unalaska Island, Alaska, USA
Country
USA
Tags
Category
People & Society
