<-- Previous  |  Image Index  |  Next -->

38. Selected image: page 70. Source: Sully, Robert Matthew. "Pocahontas." c. 1850. (Ann Uhry Abrams, The Pilgrims and Pocahontas: Rival Myths of American Origin. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999. 70.) This is the "younger" Sully, the nephew of Thomas Sully. Earlier (see 1842) he did the copy of the Turkey Island portrait that appeared in McKenney and Hall (see 1844). There appear to be three other, different portraits by Robert Matthew Sully around the same time in the early 1850s, though Rasmussen and Tilton 1994 and Abrams 1999 both seem to deal with only two, but not the same two. This is the first of the three (shown only in Abrams), an attempt to picture a "forest girl" as a complement to the "civilized" Princess. Pocahontas, Robert Matthew Sully said, should be "Crowned with wild Flowers" and wear "pearls from the ear and on the neck." (This painting is owned by the Wisconsin State Historical Society.) Though it is not clear exactly which painting he refers to, Lubbers 1994 says Sully "transforms [Pocahontas] into a Mexican temptress" (174).
[painting]