GEORGE CATLIN — EWERS 491 



oil paintings exhibited in Catlin's Indian Gallery and executed prior 

 to 1840. In 1844 he published "Catlin's North American Indian 

 Portfolio," a handsome collection of 25 large (IS'' x I214'') litho- 

 graphic reproductions of -his most popular paintings. Although the 

 crude linecuts in his first book failed to do Catlin's work justice, the 

 carefully drawn and colored lithographs in the Portfolio improved 

 upon some of the originals. (Compare Catlin's painting of the Sioux 

 scalp dance with the colored lithograph of the same subject, pi. 14.) 

 In the lithograph the figures are more realistic, the details more 

 sharply defined, the action more intense. 



In the simmier of 1845 Catlin moved his exhibition to Paris and 

 exhibited there until the following spring. Even before that time 

 Catlin began to employ live Indians to give dances and demonstrations 

 in his exhibition hall, adding the attractions of sound and action to 

 the static picture gallery and museum. Thus Catlin anticipated the 

 appeal of the Wild West Show the year before Buffalo Bill was born. 

 In 1848, after the fall of his French patron. King Louis Philippe, 

 Catlin returned to London. "A Descriptive Catalogue of Catlin's 

 Indian Collection" (1848a) listed 607 paintings. This was 100 more 

 than he had shown in London previously. Among them were 35 

 portraits of Iowa and Chippewa Indians who had performed for 

 him in 1845-46. The other new pictures were primarily wildlife and 

 hunting scenes developed from old field sketches and from memory 

 of his western travels more than a decade earlier. But the new pic- 

 tures were not enough to insure success for the exhibition. Catlin's 

 Indian Collection was no longer a novelty to the English public. 

 Catlin ran heavily into debt. 



PRESERVATION OF CATLIN'S INDIAN COLLECTION 



Catlin's impatient creditors were beginning to auction off his be- 

 longings when a wealthy fellow American appeared in the person of 

 Joseph Harrison. Mr. Harrison paid off Catlin's indebtedness, took 

 over the greater part of his collection as security and shipped it to his 

 home town of Philadelphia. 



Years passed. George Catlin, the artist, after a vain effort to sell 

 to the Government his Cartoon Collection, comprising revised replicas 

 of his earlier works and paintings based upon later travels in South 

 America and the Far West, died in Jersey City, N. J., on December 

 23, 1872. Joseph Harrison also passed away. Then one day in 1879 

 Thomas Donaldson, a lawyer from Idaho Territory who was inter- 

 ested in Indian affairs, learned that the original Catlin collection 

 was in Philadelphia in the possession of the Harrison estate. The 

 collection was said to have been through two fires since its arrival in 

 Philadelphia from Europe. It was also believed to be in a dilapidated 



