Mong-shóng-sha, Bending Willow, Wife of Great Chief

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1832

“I visited the wigwam of [Great Chief] . . . several times,” George Catlin wrote, “and saw his four modest little wives seated around the fire, where all seemed to harmonize very well; . . . I selected [Bending Willow] . . . for her portrait, and painted it . . . in a very pretty dress of deer skins, and covered with a young buffalo's robe, which was handsomely ornamented, and worn with much grace and pleasing effect.” The artist painted this portrait at a Ponca village in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes , vol. 1, no. 26, 1841; reprint 1973)