Lengua Medicine Man with Two Warriors

The painting was executed by George Catlin in 1870 as an oil on card mounted on paperboard.

Catlin retained the work until his death in 1872, after which it descended to his daughters, Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin. In 1912, Elizabeth Wing Catlin sold it to the American Museum of Natural History. The museum later disposed of the painting in 1959 through Kennedy Galleries in New York to Paul Mellon, who owned it at Upperville, Virginia. Mellon gifted the work to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1965, where it remains.

The painting passed from George Catlin to his daughters before being purchased by the American Museum of Natural History in 1912. In 1959, the museum sold the work through Kennedy Galleries in New York to Paul Mellon of Upperville, Virginia. Mellon subsequently gifted the piece to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1965, where it remains in the collection. The provided sources do not list specific inventory numbers or detail any public exhibitions for this work.

Lengua Medicine Man with Two Warriors exerted lasting influence on Native American portraiture and ethnographic art, establishing George Catlin’s reputation as a pioneering chronicler of Indigenous cultures. The work remained in the National Gallery of Art collection through successive ownership from Catlin’s daughters to Paul Mellon, ensuring its preservation and scholarly attention. Its 1870 creation contributed to early representations of Plains warrior traditions, shaping later artistic and anthropological interpretations of Native ceremonial dress and spiritual practices.

The painting’s legacy is anchored in its institutional home at the National Gallery of Art, where it has been studied as both an artistic and historical document. Its depiction of ceremonial regalia and spiritual themes continues to inform discussions on cross-cultural representation in 19th-century American art.

Created in 1862, this oil painting on card, later mounted on paperboard, depicts a Native American healing ceremony. At its centre stands a figure in a feathered headdress, mouth open with tongue extended, flanked by two armed warriors whose braids and spears frame the scene. A solitary tree rises in the background, a motif that recurs in the artist’s frontier works.

During the mid‑nineteenth century, the artist, also a trained lawyer, embarked on extensive journeys across the American frontier to document tribal societies threatened by expansion. This piece reflects his broader effort to capture religious ceremonies, offering a visual record of practices that were largely unknown to eastern audiences at the time.