Men-són-se-ah, Left Hand, a Warrior, by George Catlin, 1830
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Men-són-se-ah, Left Hand, a Warrior

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

1830

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Paintings
Dimensions
29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm)
Culture
Indians of North America
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

George Catlin described Left Hand, a member of the Piankashaw/Miami tribe, as a “fierce-looking and very distinguished warrior, with a stone-hatchet in his hand.” He probably painted this work at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1830. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 47, 1841; reprint 1973)