4636 PAIR OF UNIQUE "BUFFALO BILL" CODY FRAMED

Category Firearms & Military
Auction Currency USD
Start Price 300.00 USD
Estimated at 600.00 - 800.00 USD
PHOTOGRAPHS. 1) 24" x 14" large room view inscribed "Dinner at Sherry's to Col. Cody, May 12, 1909". This special dinner where Buffalo Bill & several Native Americans are seated at long table against wall took place at the New York City restaurant Sherry's to honor him while he was putting on show at the New York Hippodrome. Over 100 people attended, including President Taft, numerous military officers, and Frederic Remington. At the dinner, Cody proposed a giant Native American statue, a "National American Indian Memorial" that would be set on the shore of New York Harbor. He suggested that it would be "as large" as the Statue of Liberty and would serve to welcome "everyone to this shore". Many guests at the dinner party enthusiastically supported the idea, with General Nelson Miles saying he was "gratified that there is now a feeling of generosity and respect towards the departing race". Many Americans viewed it as "a celebration of victory" over Native Americans, while others considered it "a constant reminder of the vanishing race to whom we are indebted for the great, free gift of a continent", and some thought the monument would memorialize admirable qualities attributed to Natives and serve as a "lasting beacon of American ideals". John Burke, who managed Cody, announced that America owed "at least an apology for the exigencies of civilized man and his cupidity in appropriating the red man's land" though he later clarified that "of course, it was all done in the name of progress, and God had foreordained that it should be so, but let us build this monument as a lasting tribute to a dying race and to the genius of the man who suggested it". 4 years of raising money and breaking ground, it was never built. 2) 11" x 9" exposed vignette image of Buffalo Bill Cody in contemporary frame. CONDITION: appear good, not removed from frames, vignette view has damp staining on mount board, chipped gesso edging of original frame. PROVENANCE: from Martin Lane Historic & Western Americana Lifetime Collection. (02-21493, 02-21573/JS). $600-800.