CATLIN, George.

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Catlin's Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe, with his North American Indian Collection: First British edition, finely bound. Catlin's Notes recorded his experience of travelling Europe accompanied by several Native Americans and is "a readable and revealing book in the classic satirical vein of the visitor from a foreign culture commenting on the peculiarities of civilized society" (Dippie, p. 467).A young lawyer turned portraitist, George Catlin (1796-1872) set out in 1830 from his home in Pennsylvania to paint Native Americans and their way of life. Catlin's eight years among the major tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains resulted in his "Indian Gallery", an enormous collection of artefacts and more than 400 paintings, including portraits and scenes of tribal life. "The history and the customs of such a people", Catlin wrote, "preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from becoming their historian" (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, p. 2).

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