# Wa-ho-béck-ee, a Handsome Brave

- By: George Catlin (born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872)
- Date: 1834
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm)
- Culture: Osage Indians
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=4440)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/a30fdd3b464fb1ac97c63d0ba0324b9e.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This member of the Osage tribe sat for his portrait in characteristic tribal markings, including a painted and shaved head as well as a painted upper body. George Catlin described Wa-ho-béck-ee as “a brave; said to be the handsomest man in the nation; with a profusion of wampum on his neck, and a fan in his hand made of the eagle's tail.” Wa-ho-béck-ee sat for his portrait at Fort Gibson (in present-day Oklahoma) in 1834. (Catlin, 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition)