An Indian Village - Shore of the Amazon

An Indian Village – Shore of the Amazon is an oil painting on a card support that is affixed to a paperboard backing, a construction typical of mid‑19th‑century easel works. The support is rigid, allowing fine detail in the landscape genre scene. The composition features a solitary tree emerging from a riverbank, rendered with Catlin’s characteristic attention to naturalistic form and atmospheric perspective.

Executed in 1864, the work measures approximately 46.8 cm by 62.5 cm, as recorded in the National Gallery of Art’s catalog. Its formal qualities combine a restrained palette with delicate brushwork that emphasizes the texture of foliage and water.

George Catlin created the oil painting An Indian Village - Shore of the Amazon in 1864. Following the artist's death in 1872, the work passed by descent to his daughters: Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin. In 1912, the American Museum of Natural History purchased the piece from Elizabeth Wing Catlin.

The museum later sold the painting in 1959 through Kennedy Galleries in New York to collector Paul Mellon of Upperville, Virginia. Mellon subsequently gifted the work to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1965, where it remains part of the collection.

An Indian Village - Shore of the Amazon is currently held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The work entered the gallery's collection in 1965 as a gift from Paul Mellon. Prior to this acquisition, the painting was purchased in 1912 by the American Museum of Natural History from the artist's daughter, Elizabeth Wing Catlin, and later sold in 1959 through Kennedy Galleries in New York to Paul Mellon. The artwork's provenance traces back to George Catlin and his daughters, Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin. No specific exhibition history is detailed in the provided sources.

An Indian Village – Shore of the Amazon, painted by George Catlin in 1864, entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through a 1965 gift from Paul Mellon, having previously been sold by Kennedy Galleries to him in 1959 and before that passed down through Catlin’s daughters. Its presence in a major public collection and the documented chain of ownership have contributed to its scholarly recognition and ongoing reputation as an example of 19th‑century American landscape painting. The work’s dimensions, recorded as 46.8 cm by 62.5 cm, are noted in the museum’s catalogue.

George Catlin's An Indian Village - Shore of the Amazon, completed in 1862, is an oil painting on card mounted on paperboard. It depicts a tranquil, tree-lined riverside scene along the Amazon. This work represents a later phase in Catlin's career, where his artistic focus broadened from his extensive documentation of Indigenous cultures and landscapes in the American West to include the South American continent.

Originally trained as a lawyer, George Catlin dedicated his career to painting, notably documenting Native American life and the frontier landscapes of the American West. While his early work also included engravings of New York State sites, An Indian Village - Shore of the Amazon illustrates his later shift towards the Amazon. This work aligns with his broader endeavor to record diverse global environments and their inhabitants.