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Illustrations of the Manners, Customs & Condition of the
North American Indians. With Letters and Notes, Written during
Eight Years of Travel and Adventure among the Wildest and
Most Remarkable Tribes Now Existing. By George Catlin.


Published by Henry G. Bohn, London
(1845)


Original Engravings over 170 years old!
Sheet size: approximately 6 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches
[also available are the 1876 color lithographs]

George Catlin's paintings comprise the first important pictorial record of the Plains Indians and their then little-known homelands west of the Mississippi River. "Catlin's Indian Gallery," as the dedicated artist himself called it, consisted of hundreds of portraits of Indians, scenes of Indian life, and landscapes of a wilderness scarcely changed through the millennia. In his notebooks and on canvas, the young Pennsylvania lawyer captured much of an American that was swept away a century ago by the westward-pressing settler.

Catlin made these dramatic paintings on a series of journeys into largely unmapped Indian country between 1830 and 1836. For the first time, Americans in the eastern states saw the Pawnees, the tall Blackfeet and Crows, the Sioux, and the wild Comanches. They saw wide prairies teeming with buffalo, the turbulent Missouri River, and the giant grizzly bear. They saw villages of hundreds of graceful teepees and peered into the dim interiors of comfortable earth lodges, and witnessed the four-day torture ceremony of the Mandans.

The Plains Indians of Catlin's portraits were still proud and dignified, unlike their cousins on eastern reservations. Freed by the acquisition of the horse from the restrictions of hunger and scarcity, they were riding the crest of a new richness and power.

But they, too, were fated to lose in the encounter with western civilization—and Catlin knew it. "Art may mourn when these people are swept from the earth," he wrote, "and the artists of the future ages may look in vain for another race so picturesque in their costumes, their weapons, their colours, their manly games, and their chase...."

[ref.: "Letters and Notes..." introduction by Marjorie Halpin (Dover, 1973).]

catlin

George Catlin
as painted by William Fisk, 1849

"I sat out alone, unaided and unadvised, resolved, (if my life should be spared), by the aid of my brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of their primitive looks and customs as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of one lifetime could accomplish."

GEORGE CATLIN, ca. 1842

 

PLEASE CLICK ON A THUMBNAIL FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW
(Due to the age and type of paper used, some foxing may be present.)

Mackinaw, Sault Ste Marie
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 264-265

Distant View of Mackinaw

Sault Ste. Marie from the Canadian Shore

$75
[some foxing]

The Crow, Point That Remains Forever
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 268-269

On-daig, The Crow

Gitch-ee-gaw-ga-osh, Point That Remains Forever

$75

Pipe Stone Quarry
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 270

Pipe Stone Quarry

$75

Pigeon's Egg Head going to and coming from Washington
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 271-272

Wi-jun-jon, Pigeon's Egg Head,
going to Washington

Wi-jun-jon, Pigeon's Egg Head,
returning from Washington

$75

Swan Lake, Catching muskrats
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 276-277

Swan Lake

Catching Muskrats

$75

Sioux gathering wild rice, St. Peters River
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 278-279

Sioux gathering wild rice

Banks of the St. Peters River near the Traverse de Sioux

$75

The Running Fox
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 280

Kee-o-kuk, The Running Fox

$75
[some foxing]

Wife and Son of The Running Fox
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 281-282

Wife of Kee-o-kuk

Favorite son of Kee-o-kuk

$75

Black Hawk, White Cloud, etc.
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 283-286

Muk-a-tah-mish-o-kah-kaik, Black Hawk

Nah-se-us-kuk, Whirling Thunder, son of Black Hawk

Wah-pe-kee-suck, White Cloud

Wee-sheet, Sturgeon's Head

$75

The Whale, the Buck's wife
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 287-288

Ah-mou-a, The Whale

Wa-quo-tha-qua, Buck's Wife or Female Deer

$75
[some foxing]

Pash-ee-pa-ho, Little Stabbing Chief
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 289

Pash-ee-pa-ho, Little Stabbing Chief

$75

Keokuk on horseback
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 290

Keokuk on horseback

$75

Slave Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 291

Slave Dance

$75

Smoking horses
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 292

"Smoking horses," Fox going to war beg horses from the Sauk

$75

Begging Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 293

Begging Dance

$75

Sailing in canoes with the aid of blankets
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 294

Sailing in canoes with the aid of blankets

$75
[some foxing]

Discovery Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 295

Discovery Dance

$75

ALSO AVAILABLE FRAMED, FROM THE COLOR LITHOGRAPH EDITION OF 1876.

Dance to the berdash (i-coo-coo-a)
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 296

Dance to the berdash (i-coo-coo-a)

$75

Dance to the medicine-bag of the brave
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 297

Dance to the medicine-bag of the brave

$75

Osceola, Black Drink
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 298

Osceola, Black Drink

$45
[some foxing]

The Cloud, King Phillip, Creek billy
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 299-302

Ye-how-lo-gee, The Cloud

Ee-mat-la, King Phillip

Co-ee-ha-jo

La-shee, the Licker, commonly called "Creek Billy"

$75
[some foxing]

Seminole boy and woman
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 303-304

Osceola Nick-a-no-chee, Seminole boy

Seminole woman

$75

Mick-e-no-pah
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 305

Mick-e-no-pah

[foxing]

Decorations on Crow robes in Catlin's collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 306

Decorations on Crow robes
in Catlin's collection

$75

Decorations on Crow robes in Catlin's collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 307

Decorations on Crow robes
in Catlin's collection

$75

Outlines on a Pawnee robe in Catlin collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 308

Outlines on a Pawnee robe
in Catlin collection

$75

Outlines on a Pawnee robe in Catlin collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 309

Outlines on a Pawnee robe
in Catlin collection

$75
[foxing]

An Indian song on birch bark in the Catlin collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 310

An Indian song on birch bark
in the Catlin collection

$75

Symbolic writings and totems
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 311

Symbolic writings and totems

$75

A Mandan robe in Catlin collection
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 312

A Mandan robe in Catlin collection

$75

See also the color lithograph prints by Catlin from the 1876 edition
5
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