Cowan's Auction picture - American Horse's wife?

[jinlian]

The picture below is now on sale at Cowan's (labeled as "Silver gelatin of Sioux women and young boy") :



No identification is provided, but, comparing the picture above with the American Horse's family portrait (1900 or so) , the two women look just like AH's second wife (at his right) and daughter (second row, dressed in black):



The woman, one of American Horse's wives, was photographed with him at the Omaha Trans-Mississippi:



Looking at the two women, I assume that the Cowan photograph was taken in the first years of the 20th century; I wonder where and by whom...

[grahamew]

Looks like a good call.

[jinlian]

Yes, Grahame...the estimated price is 50-100$. I wonder if another label providing identification would "help" rising the price... ;D

[crzhrs]

It's very noticable in the 2nd photo that the older Indians are dressed in their traditional clothing while the younger Indians are dressed in White man's clothing.

The "assimilation" is taking place and it's no wonder everyone looks sad.

[Removed duplicate photos -- Diane]

[jinlian]

Hi Crzhrs,

many of American Horse's children graduated at Carlisle Indian School, so I don't know if they felt more at ease wearing American of traditional Lakota clothes...but probably they felt the drama of being caught between two cultures, as Robert Utley noted in his article about Plenty Horses, the slayer of Lieutenant Casey.
It's also remarkable that in the family portrait the only woman wearing American clothes is AH's daughter - the three wives (first row) and his son's wife (Dietmar posted her and her husband's photographs in the American Horse thread at the LBH board) all are in traditional attire.

[Diane Merkel]

Cowan's has apparently removed the first photo. Did anyone save it? If so, please post it or send it to me for posting.

Thanks!
Diane

[jinlian]

Hi Diane,

I've uploaded the picture on a hosting service and posted the new link - does the picture appear now? (btw, I've checked on Cowans, and the photograph is still there and hasn't been sold yet )

Thanks for your assistance!

Jin

[Diane Merkel]

Jin, the photo wasn't showing earlier -- just a little red x -- so I tried to bring up the photo based on the web address you had for it. It may have been a temporary glitch on their site. Thanks for reposting it. It's a great photo.

Crazy, I'm going to take the photos you "quoted" out of your post to save space. I don't think it will affect your comment at all. If you want them back in, go ahead.

Diane

[jinlian]

Just sold for 225$. I shouldn't have advertised it...

The younger woman it's obviously the same photographed in 1907 by Curtis:



She's probably either Sophie American Horse (b. 1878) or Alice American Horse (b. 1880)

[jinlian]

It was indeed a good auction, as far as photographs of members of the American Horse family are concerned. Here's another item sold today:



featuring indeed Charles American Horse (b. 1881) - for identification, just compare the above picture with this one by Gertrude Kasebier:

[jinlian]

I've just come across this photograph, labelled "Charles American Horse", 1901 and credited to William Herman Rau:




It certainly looks like Charles (see photograph in the previous message); what I'm not sure about it's the year, since Gertrude Käsebier's photograph above was taken in 1900 and -what's more - Charles was in fact born in 1881. The boy in the picture looks much more younger than a 20 years old young man...

Does anybody have more info about William Herman Rau and when/where he was active?