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George Catlin, Hee-láh-dee, Pure Fountain, Wife of The Smoke, 1832, oil on canvas, 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.96
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Hee-láh-dee, Pure Fountain, Wife of The Smoke
- Artist
- Date
- 1832
- 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
- Portrait female — Pure Fountain
- Indian — Ponca
- Object Number
- 1985.66.96
Artwork Description
George Catlin described Pure Fountain as a “young and very pretty woman . . . her neck and arms were curiously tattooed, which is a very frequent mode of ornamenting the body amongst this and some other tribes . . . done by pricking into the skin, gunpowder and vermilion.” He painted Pure Fountain at a Ponca village in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes , vol. 1, no. 26, 1841; reprint 1973)
Exhibitions
October 11, 2019–March 13, 2020
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists examines representations of buffalo and their integration into the lives of Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 1830s and in the twentieth century.