A Chief of the Multnomah Tribe by McNeil in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: A Chief of the Multnomah Tribe

Artist: Hermon Atkins MacNeil (American, Everett, Massachusetts 1866–1947 Queens, New York)

Date: 1903; cast ca.1907

Culture: American

Medium: Bronze

Dimensions: 37 x 10 x 10 1/4 in. (94 x 25.4 x 26 cm)

Credit Line: Bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939

Accession Number: 39.65.54a, b


In 1902 MacNeil received a commission for a monument, The Coming of the White Man, to be given to the city of Portland, Oregon. For his representation of two Multnomah (Chinook) men of the Pacific Northwest, MacNeil grouped a standing chief and a crouching spiritual healer on a boulder-shaped pedestal, overlooking the Columbia River. The sculptor also modeled the chief on a reduced scale, adding a headdress, a bow, and a quiver of arrows.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11492