Osage Indians

George Catlin

National Gallery of Art

Three men, a woman, and a baby sit or stand facing us in a row in front of a landscape within an oval-shaped painted frame in this horizontal painting. The Osage people have medium-brown skin, and the woman and baby have black hair. To our left, the woman sits on a tree stump and holds the nude child in her lap. Her long hair is loose, and she wears turquoise-colored earrings. Her floral-patterned wrap exposes one breast and comes down to her ankles. She wears tan-colored shoes, perhaps moccasins. The baby reaches for and grabs the woman’s necklaces. To our right, the man closest to the woman sits with his legs crossed, and the other two men stand. All three are bald with feathered headdresses, thick collars and necklaces, earrings, and red shapes and lines painted on their heads and bare chests and arms. They wear tan-colored, slightly baggy pants and knee-high moccasins. The seated man has three silver cuff bracelets and a wrap around his lap. An instrument he cradles in one elbow is long and narrow, and it widens slightly as it reaches a head that angles back from the body. It appears to be made of wood and the top surface painted red. One of the standing men holds a spear and the other bow and arrows. The landscape is faintly painted behind them. The pale green grass and trees meet the watery blue and very pale peach-colored sky about halfway up the composition. The scene is enclosed in a gray oval frame on a shell-pink card mounted on paperboard. A label with the number 52 is affixed at the top center of the board.