Ta-wáh-que-nah, Mountain of Rocks, Second Chief of the Tribe

George Catlin, Ta-wáh-que-nah, Mountain of Rocks, Second Chief of the Tribe, 1834, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.47
Copied George Catlin, Ta-wáh-que-nah, Mountain of Rocks, Second Chief of the Tribe, 1834, oil on canvas, 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.47
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Artwork Details

Title
Ta-wáh-que-nah, Mountain of Rocks, Second Chief of the Tribe
Artist
Date
1834
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Indian — Comanche
  • Portrait male — Mountain of Rocks
Object Number
1985.66.47
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1985.66.47

Artwork Description

In 1834, George Catlin accompanied a regiment of United States Dragoons to visit the territory of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita. Catlin later remembered being received by Comanche chief Mountain of Rocks “with great kindness at his village.” He described the chief as “the largest and fattest Indian I ever saw . . . A perfect personation of Jack Falstaff, in size and in figure, with an African face, and a beard on his chin of two or three inches in length. His name . . . he got from having conducted a large party of Camanchees through a secret and subterraneous passage, entirely through the mountain of granite rocks, which lies back of their village; thereby saving their lives from their more powerful enemy.” Ta-wáh-que-nah sat for his portrait at a Comanche village in 1834. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 42, 1841, reprint 1973, and 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition)