George CatlinAmerican, 1796–1872Non-on-dá-gon, a Chief
Can I see it?
Unknown
Where is “Non-on-dá-gon, a Chief” now? Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. 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
George Catlin probably took portraits of Delaware/Lenape chiefs Non-on-dá-gon and the Answer (see 1985.66.275) at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1830. Catlin wrote at length of these images: “Non-on-dá-gon, with a silver ring in his nose, is another of the chiefs of distinction, whose history I admired very much . . . In both of these . . . [portraits] their dresses were principally of stuffs of civilized manufacture; and their heads were bound with vari-coloured handkerchiefs or shawls, which were tastefully put on like a Turkish turban.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 47, 1841; reprint 1973)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Details
- Accession number
- 1985.66.276
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
In the life of George Catlin
The whole life1828
Married: Clara Bartlett Gregory Catlin
1830
First journey west with Governor Clark
He accompanies William Clark, governor of the Missouri Territory, on a diplomatic mission to Fort Crawford and then up the Mississippi into Native territory.
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.
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.
