La Salle Claiming Louisiana for France. April 9, 1682

1847/1848

George Catlin

Artist, American, 1796 - 1872

About twenty pale-skinned men and eighteen Indigenous people with medium-toned skin sit or stand in a gathering by a water’s edge in this horizontal landscape painting. Most of the people’s attention are focused on a pale-skinned man who stands and holds a rifle across his torso in one arm and gestures with the other hand extended. He wears a brown suit, dark hat, a red, knee-length cloak, and a sword hangs at one hip. He motions toward a rudimentary cross that stands upright in the marshy grass next to a white flag on a pole. A ring of mostly pale-skinned men sit or stand around this, though one of those seated there appears to have red-colored skin and wear a feathered headdress. These men wear brown pants and brown or blue coats with dark hats. Other Indigenous people with long black hair and some with red face paint stand or sit in an outer ring around the central action. Some of these people are bare-chested and some wear tawny-brown wraps, cloaks, or garments. Eight canoes are lined up along the zigzagging water’s edge in the left half of the painting, and people fish from two of them. The far coastline is lined with green and brown strokes, suggesting trees. Copper-brown clouds sweep across the sky, which darkens from pale yellow along the horizon, halfway up the composition, to blue along the top. The painting appears to be surrounded with a wide brown frame with a slip of paper reading “22” at the top center, but this is all painted and drawn. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner of the landscape, "G. Catlin P.”

Media Options

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During the mid-19th century, George Catlin created two large collections of paintings featuring portraits of Native Americans, genre scenes, and western landscapes. The first collection, which he called his "Indian Gallery," included more than 500 works completed during the 1830s. Most of the surviving paintings from this group are now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. During the 1850s and 1860s, Catlin created a second collection, numbering more than 600 works, which he called his "Cartoon Collection." The surviving works from this collection were acquired by the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1912. Paul Mellon purchased more than 300 paintings from the Cartoon Collection when they were deaccessioned. In 1965, he gave 351 works from this collection to the National Gallery of Art.

When Catlin exhibited the Cartoon Collection in New York in 1871, he published a catalog listing all the works. The catalog entries often included additional information about the subject of each painting. Catlin's catalog entry for this painting follows.

"Cart. No. 442.

THE EXPEDITION arriving at the mouth of the Mississippi; Lasalle erects a cross, and takes possession of the country 'in the name of Louis le Grand, King of France and Navarre,' April 9th, 1682."

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Paul Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 37.8 x 56.4 cm (14 7/8 x 22 3/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1965.16.336

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

George Catlin [1796-1872]; by descent to his daughters, Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin; purchased 1912 from Elizabeth Wing Catlin by the American Museum of Natural History; sold 1959 through (Kennedy Galleries, New York) to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1965 to the NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1965

  • 26 paintings by George Catlin from the Paul Mellon Collection, Old Courthouse, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior), St. Louis, Missouri, 1965-1968, no. 21, repro.

1968

  • Voyages of Discovery by La Salle, St. Paul Art Center, Minnesota, 1968.

  • Westward the Artist [Third Anniversary Exhibition], Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois, 1968, no. 43.

1970

  • [The La Salle Series], Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, 1970.

1971

  • An Exhibition of Paintings and Lithographs by George Catlin, Artist Historian, Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Nashville, 1971, no. 56, repro.

1972

  • Voyages of Discovery by La Salle, Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association, Alexandria, 1972.

1973

  • Voyages of Discovery by La Salle, Phoenix Art Museum, 1973-1974.

  • [Catlin exhibition], Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 1973.

1975

  • Seascape and the American Imagination, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1975, no. 17, fig. 53.

1977

  • Voyages of Discovery by La Salle, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, 1977.

1978

  • Inaugural Exhibition, The Community Art Gallery, Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville, Florida, 1978.

1980

  • American Indian Life: Paintings by George Catlin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.

  • George Catlin: The Indian Gallery & The Voyages of La Salle, The Mansfield Art Center, Ohio, 1980, no. 72, repro.

1981

  • Two Hundred Years of American Paintings, 1700-1900, Inaugural Exhibition, The Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia, 1981, no. 15 (and listed separately pp. 69-72).

1988

  • George Catlin: An American View, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1988.

1992

  • Voyages of Discovery: History Paintings by George Catlin (NGA National Lending Service exhibition), Live Oak Gardens Foundation, Inc. [now Rip Van Winkle Gardens on Jefferson Island], New Iberia, Louisiana, 1992.

1993

  • Voyages of Discovery: History Paintings by George Catlin (NGA National Lending Service exhibition), The Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, 1993.

2017

  • Picturing Mississippi, 1817-2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, 2017-2018, no. 38, repro.

Bibliography

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 38, repro. 39.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 79, repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 135, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: G. Catlin P.

Wikidata ID

Q20187889

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