# Bread, Chief of the Tribe

- By: George Catlin (born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872)
- Date: 1831
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 21 1/4 x 16 1/2 in. (53.9 x 42.0 cm)
- Culture: Indians of North America
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=3941)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/06f783dca108232bea870f114eef868a.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

George Catlin probably painted this image of the Oneida chief Bread in Washington, D.C. in 1831. The artist found his subject to be “a shrewd and talented man, well educated---speaking good English---\[he\] is handsome, and a polite and gentlemanly man in his deportment.” Catlin also described Bread as “half-blood.” The artist apparently devoted some time to painting Bread, as the portrait is one of the most perceptive and carefully finished of the period. (Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)