George CatlinAmerican, 1796–1872White Wolves Attacking a Buffalo Bull
Can I see it?
Unknown
Where is “White Wolves Attacking a Buffalo Bull” 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
“Whilst the herd is together, the wolves never attack them, as they instantly gather for combined resistance, which they effectually make. But when the herds are travelling, it often happens that an aged or wounded one, lingers at a distance behind, and when fairly out of sight of the herd, is set upon by these voracious hunters, which often gather to the number of fifty or more, and are sure at last to torture him to death, and use him up at a meal. The buffalo, however, is a huge and furious animal, and when his retreat is cut off, makes desperate and deadly resistance, contending to the last moment for the right of life---and oftentimes deals death by wholesale, to his canine assailants, which he is tossing into the air or stamping to death under his feet.” George Catlin sketched the wolves on the Upper Missouri in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, no. 31, 1841; reprint 1973)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Details
- Accession number
- 1985.66.467
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 life1830
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.
March 1833
Prince Maximilian’s expedition sees his work
At Major O’Fallon’s country estate near St. Louis, members of Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied’s scientific and ethnographic expedition look over the works from Catlin’s first Missouri expedition, among them the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who later painted many Native American portraits and scenes of his own.
spring 1834
Fort Gibson: portraits of Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage
Leaving New Orleans for Fort Gibson in Indian Territory, he paints portraits of Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Osage and other Native Americans.
19 June 1834
With the dragoons onto the Southern Plains
He sets out onto the Southern Plains with a dragoon detachment led by Henry Leavenworth and Henry Dodge, and visits Comanche and Wichita lands.
