Adding to the Portfolio and the Narrative: Further Images of Eighteenth-Century Labrador Inuit in England

Аннотация

In 1768, the Labrador Inuk woman Mikak and her son Tutauk were taken to England by Newfoundland’s Governor Hugh Palliser as official guests of the government in hopes of improving relations, especially trade, with Labrador Inuit. They returned to Labrador in 1769. In 1772, English merchant Captain George Cartwright brought two Labrador Inuit brothers and their families to England: Attuiock, Ickongoque, Ickeuna, Tooklavinia, and Caubvick. The known paintings and pastels of these individuals, together with their personal histories, have provided insights into the Inuit experience and management of 18th-century colonial presence and expansion in Labrador. The known images are also unique and striking artworks of the Georgian period, several by famous artists of the time. This paper adds four more works to the known portfolio, including two portrayals of Mikak and Tutauk and two of the Inuit family group. Additionally, two further images of Mikak and Tutauk are noted that have been mentioned in exhibition catalogues but have not yet been found. Provenance histories and comparisons of both the new and the known works are emphasized and explored. The subjects’ performances in their various roles—as individuals with their own goals, as important visitors, as subjects of artwork for purpose of ethnography—are also considered, as is the purpose of some of these images as mementoes. Their hosts’ performances and responses to the Indigenous visitors are also considered—including their use of common colonial figures of speech, such as sarcasm, and cultural stereotyping of their guests as the wise noble, the innocent, the “Indian princess,” and chief or leader (to open social and diplomatic doors). Finally, the painting known as A Labrador Woman by an unknown artist in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London, is briefly revisited. This striking portrait has been variously identified over time, and we discuss why this may be another 1769 portrayal of Mikak.