American Art Collaborative

“I have also placed upon my canvas [Crystal Stone]; her countenance is rather pleasing, which is an uncommon thing amongst the Blackfeet---her dress is made of skins, and being the youngest of a bevy of six or eight, and the last one taken under his [the chief's] guardianship, was smiled upon with great satisfaction.” Crystal Stone was the youngest wife of the Blackfoot chief Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, the “apple of his eye” and “exempted . . . from the drudgeries of the camp.” George Catlin painted this work at Fort Union in the upper Midwest in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, no. 5, 1841; reprint 1973)