about New York Historical Society

THE GUY WITH THE NOSE RING
ON THE FACADE OF THE N-YHS

The New-York Historical Society's 100-year-old landmark building has been covered with a giant portrait of Ki-On-Twog-Ky, commonly known as Cornplanter, one of the most important Seneca Indian leaders. The portrait was painted by Frederick Bartoli in 1796 to commemorate Cornplanter's meeting with the U.S. Congress ten years before and his role as mediator between native and non-native cultures.

Cornplanter's name references the importance of corn and planting techniques to Senecan tribes and, eventually, to the survival of early European settlers. To Cornplanter and other Senecas, the idea of being a planter represented a desire for peace and community-building, rather than warfare.

Cornplanter spent much of his life mediating between Iroquois tribes and various European and American powers. He was born some time in the early 1750s into the Gyantwachia tribe. His mother was a Seneca Indian and his father a Dutch American trader who provided the tribes of Western New York and Pennsylvania with muskets and other goods.





In Bartoli's portrait, Cornplanter adorned himself with Western goods -- the silver medal and armbands and the scarlet cloth with which he draped himself were most likely gifts from the Confederation Congress presented during his visit to New York City in 1786, three years before the inauguration of George Washington. The pipe tomahawk he held and the mutilation of his ears reflected popular Native American aesthetic traditions.

This portrait will be among the works on display in a permanent installation of New York's seminal role in the founding era of the United States when the N-YHS re-opens in November 2011.