The Trial of Red Jacket
1869
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of George M. Stanley (grandson of the artist) and family and museum purchase
Accession Number
1990.34
Tags
About this artwork
Red Jacket (1758-1830) was a famous leader of the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Nation. In this ambitious painting, John Mix Stanley showed the chief defending himself against a charge of witchcraft. Under his white robe is the red jacket given to him by a British officer for his help as a messenger during the American Revolution. Stanley trained as a portrait painter, and all of the figures in this work are portraits of identifiable individuals. The Trial of Red Jacket was almost destroyed in th...