Assinneboine Chief before and after Civilization – (George Catlin) ◄ Tidigare Nästa ►

Konstnär: George Catlin

datum: 1869

storlek: 47 x 64 cm

Teknik: Oil On Board

A horizontal oval is divided vertically into two portraits to show the same brown-skinned man twice, once wearing Assiniboine tribal attire and once wearing a dark, military-style suit in this painting. In both portraits, the man has dark eyes and brows, high cheekbones, and a sloping nose. Straight black hair hangs around his face and down his back, and he wears red, blue, or white earrings from multiple piercings on his ear lobes. Both stand in landscapes with pale green trees and grass under ice-blue skies, and there are buildings in the distance of each. To our left, the man stands facing our left in profile, wearing tribal attire. There, his eyes are open wide, his lips are in a straight line, and there is a stripe of red along his lower jaw. The cascade of white and black feathers on his headdress disappears behind his lower back. He wears a tan leather tunic with leather leggings and beaded shoes. Medallions on his chest and a band down the sleeve and side of the pant leg we see are decorated in tones of tangerine orange, celery green, and harvest yellow. Fringe hangs from his sleeves and the front of his tunic. A sable-brown pelt or blanket hangs over his far shoulder and trails behind his feet, which are at the edge of a curving path leading into the distance. He holds a long pipe by his side in the hand we can see. In the distance behind him is a silvery-white domed building with rows of windows. A faint vertical line separates the man to our left from his counterpart to our right. There, he stands with his back to us with his face turned to our right in profile. His eyes are narrowed, and his lips are pursed around a cigarette. He wears an oyster-white top hat. His nearly knee-length black overcoat has gold epaulets on the shoulders and a gold-trimmed high collar. He has black pants, black shoes with pointed toes, and a wide red belt. Also around his waist, a leather band holds a curved gold sword hilt and scabbard so it hangs from long straps between his legs, the tip nearly brushing the ground. Dark glass bottles peek out of pockets on the back of his coat. In white-gloved hands, he holds up and gazes at a partially open saffron-orange fan in his right hand, and he holds a folded black umbrella in his other, leaning on it like a cane. In the landscape beyond him, several people stand in front of pale brown, cone-shaped tents. Brownish haze hangs over the horizon to our right. The oval is surrounded by borders of fawn brown and then black. The card paper on which this is painted is tawny brown around the oval. That paper is mounted on an olive-green paperboard. A slip of paper attached to the green board at the top center reads “83.” The lower left corner of the brown paper is inscribed in ink with an “A” over a dash, and then “126” below. In the green border below the portraits, the artist wrote a lowercase “a” to our left and “b” to our right.