Prior to depicting the subject in a painting for the House Committee on Indian Affairs, Seth Eastman provided this illustration for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s six-volume Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (1852). This earlier illustration of a scalping is more graphic, with the fallen man sprawling more haphazardly, and the victor’s expression more fierce. This print would have been published uncolored and was hand-painted later by an unknown individual, so the generous splashes of red were not the artist’s addition.
