An Osage Indian Lancing a Buffalo
1846-1848
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Accession Number
1985.66.567
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin enjoyed and documented buffalo hunts with various tribes, describing methods such as the exhilarating but dangerous chase on horseback, the surround, and the ambush, in which hunters crept among the unsuspecting herds disguised under the skin of a white wolf for a close and easy shot. During the 1830s, many Indians still used the ambush, but the acquisition of the horse centuries before had transformed their hunting methods. The tribes could now hunt with less danger to themselves ...
About the Artist
George Catlin · 1796–1872
George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...