Jú-ah-kís-gaw, Woman With Her Child in a Cradle
1835
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
1985.66.186
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin described this work as “the portrait of a Chippeway woman . . . with her child in its crib or cradle . . . [the umbilicus] hanging before the child's face for its supernatural protector . . . This woman's dress was mostly made of civilized manufactures, but curiously decorated and ornamented according to Indian taste.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 51, 1841; reprint 1973)
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 ...