The Cheyenne Brothers Returning from Their Fall Hunt

Painted in 1861, The Cheyenne Brothers Returning from Their Fall Hunt was completed by George Catlin during his extended project of documenting Plains Indian life. The work descended to his three daughters, Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin, before being purchased in 1912 by the American Museum of Natural History from Elizabeth Wing Catlin. In 1959 the museum sold it through Kennedy Galleries, New York, to Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia. Mellon gifted the painting to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1965.

The canvas measures 46.2 cm in height by 62 cm in width.

The painting is currently held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it was accessioned in 1965 as a gift from Paul Mellon. Prior to this transfer, the work was owned by the American Museum of Natural History, which purchased it in 1912 from Elizabeth Wing Catlin, one of the artist's daughters. The museum sold the piece in 1959 through Kennedy Galleries to Paul Mellon, who subsequently donated it to the National Gallery of Art. The provenance traces the work from George Catlin to his daughters before entering public collections.

Painted in 1861, the work entered the National Gallery of Art's collection through a series of family descents and commercial transactions, beginning with George Catlin's daughters and culminating in a 1965 gift by Paul Mellon.

Scholarship on this painting emphasizes its role within Catlin's broader documentation of Native American life, though it has received less critical attention than his more widely exhibited pieces.

The painting's compositional focus on a tree aligns with Catlin's ethnographic interest in natural elements as cultural symbols, situating it within 19th-century genre scenes that blended documentary realism with romanticized narratives of the American frontier.

Created in 1865, The Cheyenne Brothers Returning from Their Fall Hunt is an oil painting executed on card that has been mounted on a paperboard support. The work shows two Cheyenne riders on horseback, still and poised after a hunt, set against a sparse landscape that includes a solitary tree. The composition captures a brief, tranquil instant in the daily routine of Plains peoples.