Man's Shirt Elaborately Decorated
date: label: Accession Date
content: 21 Oct 1881
name: label: Collector
content: George Catlin
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.
notes: label: Notes
content: See p. 386 in "The George Catlin Indian Gallery in the U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian Institution) with Memoir and Statistics" by Thomas [Corwin] Donaldson, in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1885, part 5, Government Printing Office, 1886, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31077461 . It is noted there: "After Mr. Catlin's return to London from Paris in 1848, he added to his gallery a series of full-length costumed figures [mannequins]." See also p. 387 of the same publication https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31077462 . There it is noted that one of these mannequins, Catlin display mannequin # 611, depicted "Mah-to-toh-pa, the Four Bears ; a Mandan chief, in full dress. ... The entire dress the same that was worn by him when he stood for the full-length portrait seen in the collection."
label: Notes
content: This shirt is illustrated and discussed on p. 157 in the "Illustrated Commentary" section (by Joan Troccoli) of George Catlin and His Indian Gallery, ed. George Gurney and Therese Heyman, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2002. It is noted about the shirt: "Occasionally, Catlin acquired his sitters' clothing to exhibit in the Indian Gallery as proof of the accuracy of his art. His greatest prize was a shirt given to him by the Mandan chief Four Bears, 'with the history of his battles emblazoned on it.' The shirt [E386505] ... resembles the one worn by Four Bears in the portrait ..., but it was probably fabricated by Catlin, not the Mandan chief. The artist may have raided his collection for a period skin and the bands of Cree quillwork sewn on the shoulders; he also probably painted the crude pictographs himself. Whether (and how) Catlin lost Four Bears's real shirt is unknown, but he seems to have felt that he needed to include a substitute in his exhibitions."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 2 Aug 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Missouri River (Upper) (not certain), United States (not certain) / Canada (not certain), North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Mandan (?)
label: Culture
content: Cree (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 010638
label: USNM Number
content: E386505-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Shirt