Braves' Dance, Ojibwa

1835-1837 · Painting · 49.7 × 70 cm

May one see it?

Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, D.C., United States

The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.

In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum's own collection data

On the map Museum page

About the painting

“At intervals they stop, and one of them steps into the ring, and vociferates as loud as possible, with the most significant gesticulations, the feats of bravery which he has performed during his life---he boasts of the scalps he has taken---of the enemies he has vanquished, and at the same time carries his body through all the motions and gestures, which have been used during these scenes when they were transacted. At the end of his boasting, all assent to the truth of his story, and give in their approbation by the guttural “waugh!” and the dance again commences. At the next interval, another makes his boasts, and another, and another, and so on.” George Catlin first sketched the dance at Fort Snelling (in today’s Minnesota) in 1835. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 51, 1841; reprint 1973)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Particulars

Accession number: 1985.66.452

What it shows

Western Rites and ceremonies Man Figure group Dance Brave's Dance

In the catalog

Paintings Oil American painting Romanticism 19th century

Sources

Smithsonian American Art Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 7 days ago
Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0

Meanwhile, in the life of George Catlin

The whole life

1830–1836
Five journeys into the American West
St. Louis was his base for the five trips and the steamer Yellowstone of the American Fur Company his first transport; he visited 48 tribes in all (other accounts say about fifty). On trips along the Arkansas, Red and Mississippi rivers, in Florida and around the Great Lakes he painted more than 500 pictures and gathered a substantial collection of artifacts.
1836
First exhibition: about 500 works
Catlin’s first exhibition takes place in the United States, with about 500 works, but it makes little public stir.
1838
The Indian Gallery and public lectures
Back in the East, he gathers his paintings and Native artifacts into his own Indian Gallery and begins giving lectures on life among the Indians, touring Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and New York with the show. The paintings hang salon-style, in rows one above another, and visitors identify them by catalogue numbers.
May 1838
Congress declines to buy the Indian Gallery
The U.S. Congress rebuffs his offer to sell the collection: Catlin wanted his life’s work kept intact, but his later efforts to persuade officials in Washington failed as well.
after 1839
Gallery shows in London, Brussels and Paris
As a showman and entrepreneur, he draws public interest to the Indian Gallery with exhibitions in London, Brussels and Paris (including the Louvre). Charles Baudelaire praised him for bringing back to life the nobility and manliness of the chiefs.
November 1839
Moves his family to England
Finding no response in America to his view of Native culture, and hoping for a more receptive audience after Congress turned him down, he takes his family and collection across the Atlantic to England.