La Salle's Party Feasted in the Illinois Village. January 2, 1680

Abandoning his career as a barrister, George Catlin moved to Philadelphia and set up shop as a portrait painter. A visiting delegation of Indians rekindled his lifelong interest in native Americans, and shortly thereafter, he began making plans to travel west.Inspired by the examples of Charles Willson Peale's art, work on natural history, and ethnographic museum, the explorer-artist set out with easel and paints strapped to his back on a mission to record the vanishing tribes. After exhibiting his work in several East Coast cities, Catlin set sail for Europe in 1839 with eight tons of Indian artifacts as well as his own pictures. His spirited lectures and his collections captivated audiences in London and Paris.In 1847, King Louis Philippe commissioned him to do a series of paintings illustrating the voyages of La Salle, the seventeenth-century French explorer of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River. La Salle's Party Feasted in the Illinois Village re-creates an event that took place on 2 January 1680. With his firsthand experience of contemporary Indians, Catlin captured the mood of the ceremony, while his quick, feathery method of painting exquisitely conveys the effect of snow frosting the trees, tepees, and wigwams.