Two Comanche Girls

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1834

The scene, painted by George Catlin at a Comanche village in 1834, shows “the wigwam of the Chief, his dogs, and his five children.” The artist also described the village as “six or eight hundred skin-covered lodges, made of poles and buffalo skins, in the manner precisely as those of the Sioux and other Missouri tribes . . . This village with its thousands of wild inmates, with horses and dogs, and wild sports and domestic occupations, presents a most curious scene; and the manners and looks of the people, a rich subject for the brush and the pen.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 42, 1841, reprint 1973, and 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition)