This carved wooden figure depicts an angel painted white with black hair and a cream-colored full-length gown. It has a flat, round face, typical of Woodland-style figural carvings, and large gray wings. It is part of collection 2002.40, which includes 26 Ottawa figures and may have been part of a nativity scene. 

This figure is an important example of Woodland and Ottawa human figural carving with a style very similar to earlier examples of totems or medicine dolls. It helps show the Woodland's transition to Christianity, using traditional Woodland-style carvings to depict Catholic iconography. Very few, if any, other examples of Woodland Catholic or Christian devotional carvings are known, and this group may be the largest collection of traditional Ottawa wooden figures to exist.

The woodcarving tradition of Great Lakes and Eastern Woodland Peoples is stylistically distinct from that in other areas. Before the arrival of missionaries and the acceptance of Christianity in Michigan, carved human figures served as charms, medicine dolls, and guardians. They featured straight, rigid wooden bodies with attached arms, and round heads and flat features. As Indigenous People converted to Christianity, such artistic expressions of their old ways and spiritual beliefs were likely destroyed, and few examples exist today.

These assorted carved figures were created by Ottawa artisans in Father Wiekamp's late 19th-century convent workshop of Holy Cross Mission in Cross Village, Michigan. Some of the human and animal figures may have been part of a crèche or nativity set. The larger figures represent angels or portray people holding candles or kneeling in prayer and are clear adaptations of the Ottawa's carving tradition to express their new Roman Catholic faith.