Chief Gall, the celebrated Hunkpapa Lakota war leader, stands at left beside his young nephew in this full-length cabinet card portrait by David Frances Barry, the foremost photographer of Plains Indian subjects in the late nineteenth century. Both subjects wear beaded moccasins, and the session almost certainly took place during one of Gall's visits to Barry's West Superior, Wisconsin studio in the late 1880s. Barry's relationship with Gall was among the most documented of his career, producing a series of portraits that became widely distributed through his mail-order catalog.

Gall wears a heavily fringed hide shirt with a large cross-shaped breastplate ornament suspended from a circular disc at the throat, two eagle feathers rising from his long hair, and fringed hide leggings. His nephew stands at his right in a printed calico shirt with two long braids, ear ornaments, and a beaded necklace, both figures posed before a painted tropical backdrop with a prop stone balustrade.

Gall fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and later became a prominent advocate for peace, working with U.S. authorities and serving as a judge on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Court until his death in 1894. Barry's portraits of him remain the defining photographic record of his later years.

The mount face is inscribed in ink "Gall & Nephew." in script below the image. The reverse bears a red-printed imprint with an engraved portrait of Chief Gall, the studio name "D. F. Barry, Photographer, West Superior, Wis.," and the notation "Photographs of All Noted Indians. Catalogues Mailed on Application."

From the collection of James Lee Soffer