Wée-sheet, Sturgeon's Head, a Fox Warrior, by George Catlin, 1832
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.

Wée-sheet, Sturgeon's Head, a Fox Warrior

George Catlin (born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872)

1832

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Paintings
Dimensions
29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm)
Culture
Fox Indians
Museum
Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Rights
CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the Smithsonian Institution

About this work

“The Sacs and Foxes, who were once two separate tribes, but with a language very similar, have, at some period not very remote, united into one, and are now an inseparable people, and go by the familiar appellation of the amalgam name of ‘Sacs and Foxes’ . . . These people have sold so much of their land lately, that they have the luxuries of life to a considerable degree, and may be considered rich; consequently they look elated and happy, carrying themselves much above the humbled manner of most of the semi-civilized tribes, whose heads are hanging and drooping in poverty and despair.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 56, 1841; reprint 1973)