McKenney and Hall, 1836-1844 - TSHUSICK. AN OJIBWAY WOMAN., from History of the Indian Tribes of North America - ca. 1838 - T-Shirt

This hand-coloured lithographic portrait shows Tshusick, an Ojibway woman, seated full-length beside a small table, rendered with the crisp, measured precision of an 1830s plate.

Visual Elements & Composition

The figure dominates the frame. She sits upright on a chair, her feathered headdress tied with a blue ribbon bow and her red beaded jacket edged in blue trim. The palette is restrained: cream paper forms the ground, with brick red carrying most of the colour, and navy, sky blue and rose pink used in small accents. The composition sits within a rectangular plate framing an oval vignette, and the inscription TSHUSICK. and AN OJIBWAY WOMAN. is printed directly on the plate.

Meaning & Symbolism

Thomas McKenney, head of the United States Office of Indian Affairs, commissioned portraits like this one for his History of the Indian Tribes of North America. Tshusick was photographed in likeness during her travels to Washington, D.C. in the early nineteenth century, a visit that reflects the diplomacy and government-managed encounters of its time. The plates were drawn from original paintings by skilled lithographers and colourists, and they record the individual identity of a woman far from her homelands in the Great Lakes region. The headdress, beadwork and seated pose present her as a person in her own right, not a type.

Wearing the Portrait

A tee is worn at close range and seen from every side, so the seated figure and framed plate stay legible as the shirt moves with you. The composition is centred and symmetrical, which keeps the figure at the chest and the inscription in view. Its cream ground and brick red beadwork give the design a warm, vintage character that suits a casual, everyday wardrobe.