George CatlinAmerican, 1796–1872Breaking Down the Wild Horse
May one see it?
Unknown
Washington, D.C., United States
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
When the lasso falls over the neck of a wild horse, George Catlin wrote, the Indian “instantly dismounts, leaving his own horse, and runs as fast as he can, letting the laso pass out gradually and carefully through his hands, until the horse falls for want of breath, and lies helpless on the ground; at which time the Indian advances slowly towards the horse's head, keeping his laso tight upon its neck, until he fastens a pair of hobbles on the animal's two forefeet, and also loosens the laso (giving the horse chance to breathe), and gives it a noose around the under jaw, by which he gets great power over the affrighted animal, which is rearing and plunging when it gets breath; and by which, as he advances, hand over hand, towards the horse's nose, he is able to hold it down and prevent it from throwing itself over on its back, at the hazard of its limbs.
Read on
By this means he gradually advances, until he is able to place his hand on the animal's nose, and over its eyes; and at length to breathe in its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile and conquered; so that he has little else to do than to remove the hobbles from its feet, and lead or ride it into camp.” Catlin sketched this scene on a dragoon expedition in 1834, and probably completed the painting in his studio between 1835 and 1837. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 41, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1985.66.501
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
Meanwhile, in the life of George Catlin
The whole life1830–1836
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.
1832
Up the Missouri to Fort Union
He ascends the Missouri more than 3,000 km to the Fort Union trading post (today on the North Dakota–Montana border) and spends several weeks among peoples little touched by European culture. Visiting eighteen tribes, among them the Pawnee, Omaha, Ponca, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine and Blackfeet, he paints the most vivid portraits of his career.
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.
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.