A bust-length portrait of Chief Keokuk of the Sauk Nation is presented here as a 5.25 X 7.25 inch albumen print mounted on an 11 X 14 inch mount, reproduced from an original daguerreotype made by Thomas M. Easterly, the noted St. Louis daguerreotypist who documented Keokuk during the chief's visits to that city in the 1840s and 1850s. The oval-vignette print is affixed to a plain mount with no photographer's imprint visible on either the recto or verso. The number 677 appears printed within the image at the lower edge of the oval border.

Keokuk faces the camera directly with a composed, steady expression beneath a dramatic roach headdress of gathered and fanned feathers rising well above the crown. He wears a heavily ornamented garment decorated with bone or quill breastplate work across the shoulders and chest, layered strands of beadwork or shell at the neck, and pendant ear ornaments at both sides. Face paint or tattooing is suggested by vertical markings visible on the forehead and chin.

Keokuk, whose name translates roughly as "one who moves about alert," was a prominent Sauk leader and orator who negotiated with the United States government through the mid-nineteenth century. Easterly's daguerreotypes of Keokuk are among the earliest and most historically significant photographic portraits of a Native American leader, making copy prints such as this one important documents of that legacy.

The reverse of the mount bears faint impressed or transferred markings but no legible text or studio imprint.